


Faint of Heart

by Arnica



Series: Blocking your own shot [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Bullying, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Multi, Suicide Attempt, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:58:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnica/pseuds/Arnica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are perfectly normal at Torchwood Three. Jack's got that look in his eye that says he's planning one of those slightly too realistic bondage games that leave Ianto feeling almost too uncomfortable to enjoy. Cheyenne's disdainfully polite as always as she explains, again, why Indiana cannot possibly spend the night at Ianto's flat. Owen's a nervous, faintly obnoxious little shadow of a man and between Toshiko's constant, slightly cruel ignorance of his existence and the fact that Cheyenne gleefully exploits his inexplicable mortal terror of her, he's going to have a nervous break down any day now. Tosh is just Tosh, a little easy, a little dangerous, brilliant enough for five people and happily in love. Gwen has a stranger living in her flat, Ianto has a secret he can't tell, and Adam?</p><p> </p><p>Adam's just fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

It's too much.

 

The ropes keeping Ianto lashed down to the desktop under his knees are wickedly tight, the fish bone weave of the royal blue cords keep his ribs constricted, the hard rubber of the gag forcing his jaw almost too wide, blocking too much of the scant air he manages to snatch. His muscles burn from the carefully balanced position he's been tied into for too long and his jaw and throat are slick with spit as he huffs and pants through the uncomfortably intense vibrations running from the mini bullet strapped against the sensitive underside of his cock up to his teeth. There's not far he can shift in his position, bowed backwards with his wrists woven to his ankles in a box knot, and every movement he does make worsens the situation, keeping his limbs in a constant state of pins and needles and shifting the large knobbed plug inside him. A whimper slides past the thick black gag between his teeth. He hasn't come yet, wasn't sure he could when he's caught and helpless in that space between pleasure and pain that's always just too much for him to really enjoy, but Jack knows him too well. Jack can play him like an instrument to get exactly the response he wants and right now Ianto's hurling, blindfolded and contorted, towards an orgasm he's not sure he'll actually enjoy. Jack's chair creaks, leather shifting as the immortal man moves, maybe closer maybe not, and not knowing where Jack is doesn't make it any better.

 

His balls are drawn up tight, the muscles in his thighs shaking and he's done with this; done with letting Jack twist him up into something he doesn't like just to watch him come apart screaming; for help, or mercy, or more, since he isn't sure himself what he wants anymore.

 

Except to stop, he knows he wants to do that pretty badly. He's grasping with his fingertips for the old fashioned bell Jack settled next to Ianto's ankle, almost too far away to reach and the pads of his fingers have just brushed the smoothly worn handle when the plug that's sat still and stimulating enough inside him jerks to life with a low fast purr and it's too much. It's like being punched in the chest, takes his already scant breath as Ianto tries to scream and leaves him lightheaded and gasping desperately as the slightly too tight strap that's been rubbing the corners of his mouth pink is jerked loose. The gag hits something solid, the floor or the desk, Ianto doesn't know, too busy trying to ride out the bone rattling wave of overload crashing down on him. The vibrations are pushing him too fast through the waves of not-exactly pleasure, shoving him headfirst into that smothering feeling he doesn't have a name for and when they both cut off simultaneously the absence is so sweet that he almost comes again, slumping into his bonds. The wet blood warm splatter on his face and hair isn't a surprise and neither are the fingers sliding across his jaw before pressing into his open gasping mouth, smearing quickly cooling come across his tongue as Ianto pants for air.

 

“Look at you.” It's the first thing Jack's said to him since the blindfold went on and the not so little part of himself that kind of wants to come off the desk swinging gets shoved away under the feeling of Jack's hands tracing along his body, sliding toys out and off of Ianto, guiding the razor sharp boot knife Jack keeps on him under the tightly woven cords. The tip of the knife brushes against Ianto's sternum and he freezes until the rope gives way under the keen edge of the blade, taking his first full breath in entirely too long.

 

“I can't even if I wanted to, you've still got me blindfolded.”

 

“Then take my word for how pretty you look.” Jack's fingers tug at Ianto's hair as they unfasten the blindfold from the back of his head. The light in Ianto's office is painfully bright after the almost perfect blackness of the blindfold. “Come on, Adam should be in any minute now, let's not get caught _again_.” The ropes binding arms to legs part with a quick flash of steel and just that easy Jack's got his trouser leg tugged up, sliding the blade back into his boot before he even bothers to do his fly back up. He starts to reach out and Ianto rolls his shoulder out of the way, eyes on the semen spattered black mask in his hands. He's trying not to let himself shake even though he's cold, he's strung out, and he's fucking _pissed_ at himself as much as Jack for even letting it get this far. Not to mention that he'd love to sit down before his legs knot up but he's got something entirely too large shoved in his arse, thanks very much, that he'd really like to get out any time the other man's done staring at him.

 

“Ah well, mustn't keep the team waiting for their coffee. Anything else I can help you with, _Sir_?” Jack doesn't even have the decency to accept being rebuffed, leaning closer and using his thumb to smear a cooling streak of spunk off the corner of Ianto's mouth before rocking back on his own heels.

 

“Okay, I can take a hint, I'm going. Oh, and you're going to have to wash your hair before you head upstairs.” The pad of Jack's thumb, glazed sticky with his own seed disappears into his mouth and Ianto digs his nails into his palm when he realizes he wouldn't be watching Jack smirk at him around the width of his own thumb if he wasn't staring raptly at where the digit sinks into the slick heat of Jack's mouth and slides out with a wet pop. “Yeah, that's what I thought. Chop chop Ianto Jones, you're going to need all the time you can get. You're kind of a mess.” He saunters out the door to Ianto's office, braces still swaying off his hips and because he's a fucking bastard, or just inconsiderate since either is a fair option this early in the morning, he leaves the door to Ianto's office ajar.

 

There may be things on this green Earth more awkward than trying to get off a waist high desk with numb limbs and something that feels like a bloody grapefruit shoved inside you, but Ianto's never had any of _them_ happen to him before. He's slumped across his desk, propped up on folded forearms while his legs quake trying to decide if working the hard plug in him out with the door half open is _really_ a worse option than the stumbling limping shamble he'll have to do all the way across the office and back again just to close it when it closes itself with a soft snick. He wants for Jack to have remembered what a dick he was and knows it's probably wasn't him.

 

Because his inability to say “no” when one of his ex's wants to screw him rotten in every way he hates should _always_ be compounded by the other one walking in on the sloppy after math. Just to start every day off with that 'how can my life suck worse' desperation that every good, disposable, Torchwood agent should carry around themselves. The leather of his blotter cushions his forehead as Ianto lets his head thump down to the desk, slinging one knee back up to the top and resigning himself to the fact that stalling won't make the thing in him come out any easier than it went in.

 

***

 

Apparently best efforts at toning down the walk of shame are failing. Adam's leaning over Tosh in her chair, whispering something in her ear that makes her face flush and her eyes sparkle, and they give him matching Cheshire cat grins and winks when he settles both mugs down next to each other. Owen can't even look at him, just jogs up the stairs and turns red from the part in his hair to the base of his throat as he mumbles under his breath, snatches his mug, and bolts back into his little hole. Jack is silent too, willing to let the tilt of his lips and the satisfied set of his brows do the talking for him, but Cheyenne is another matter entirely.

 

“Okay, you have _got_ to grow a pair and stop letting Jack fuck you up like this. I've been trying to stay out of it and let you figure it out yourself but since you're not being very bright about it.” She doesn't bother looking up at him when she speaks and makes it obvious with every line of her body that she could certainly spare the attention and chooses not to. “I'm going to tell you this once. Tell Jack to go fuck himself. We all know you won't _mean_ it, but you could at least make him _work_ for it sweetheart.” _Now_ she looks up at him through the soft waves of fringe falling across the side of her face, a smirk hidden in the corners of her mouth and the spark of her eyes as she flicks her eyes between his mostly blank face and the white-knuckle grip he has on her mug.

 

“I'm not Owen, Cheyenne; you can't bully me around like you do him.” He hates this, the casual disdain that's the base of their most polite conversations now. A sly little smile slides across the glossy nude pout of her mouth as she taps her long equally shiny steel grey nails off a file on her desk.

 

“Oh? Because you know even _Owen_ wouldn't let himself end up the way I found you this morning.” He _knew_ it was her. He _knew_ it was Cheyenne who closed his door this morning. Her mug hits the edge of the desk with a click and he gives her the same shitty little smile that she's giving him.

 

“Yes, well he also wouldn't know a good time if it stripped itself naked, rolled around in glitter, and did a lewd and enthusiastic jig in front of him. If I'm not making Jack 'work for it', which is a bit counter-intuitive to the 'casual sex on demand' thing we've got, it's not your concern Dr. Morgan.” She stops smiling, hooking one finger in the handle of her mug and sliding it across the conference room table where she's sprawled out and working despite having her own office to make a mess in down in the archives.

 

“Well, I did say I'd only tell you once. You do know Jack so much better than I do. If you think you're man enough to keep your head above water kid, then don't let me stop you.” She sips from her mug once and sets it off to the side, sliding the folder she pushed aside back in front of her. “I'll take a chicken Caesar salad for lunch, add tomatoes, light croutons, dressing on the side.”

 

“I want Indiana tonight.” She looks up at him for just a second before going back to the piles of paperwork in front of her.

 

“No.” Just that easy, same as always. “He doesn't have a room at your place, or a bed, or a high chair...do I really need to keep listing all the things you don't have? I don't even know how much furniture you have for _you_. Are you even going home, or just crashing here most nights?” He opens his mouth only to realize for one frightening second that he doesn't know. He doesn't know where he sleeps, which is ridiculous and frightening and the thought slips away as Cheyenne barrels over his unspoken protest. “That's what I thought. When you order my lunch, tell them to make sure they actually _read_ the order this time and that if they send my dressing on my salad one more time I will buy them out _just_ to fire everyone there.” He's not sure if he'd put it past her today. She's certainly in the mood to buy a sandwich shop just for spite

 

“Jesus Cheyenne, it's just a salad.”

 

“Then it shouldn't be so hard to get right, should it? Look, it's audit week and I've been _promised_ that I won't get more than half of the backlog Jack has for me finished but I'd kind of like to try, so what else do you need?”

 

“Nothing.” Since he's still got enough dignity left not to admit that some kind of emotional muscle memory was about to kick out the chair next to her and start presorting her work. There's nothing in him self-destructive enough to admit that even knowing there's nothing for them anymore isn't enough to make him stop feeling, in a deep, oddly physical way, like he's still very much in love with her. It's strange how hard it is, keeping himself from reaching for her even when she's being a spiteful, melodramatic diva; like the ache's new all over again. The alarm sounds as the Hub door begins to roll back.

 

“Well then maybe you should go see how Gwen would like her coffee instead of staring at me. Just a thought.” She rolls her eyes, actually lifting her hand and dismissing him with a flick of her nails. Ianto clenches his fists and resists the urge to call her a bitch to her face, breathing deeply through his nose.

 

“Charming. Don't forget it's my day to pick up Indy.”

 

The main floor is cluttered, things spilling out of boxes, sprawled across desks and work spaces as Jack carts crates of things marked as 'unidentified; harmless' out of the access hall where they were left not-so-neatly stacked as each load was lugged up from the neutral temperature, dimly lit storage room on the top floor of the archives where uncatalogued, inert objects are held. Ianto's given up on ripping down the Gothic script print outs proclaiming it 'alien crap purgatory' and demanding he 'abandon all hope' since there's a new one every time he goes up the stairs. Instead it's time for the biannual audit in which a small percentage of what they have unlabeled will finally be identified and moved, making room for the obscene amount of other unidentified things they'll gather in the next six months. Adam is staring up at the door, brows drawn together as Gwen comes running in fighting with her scarf and jacket.

 

Her skin's gone ever so slightly golden and extra freckled in the warm mid-April sun and her hair has the beginnings of red streaks in it from the sun.

 

“You're late.” Jack hoists one of the crates in the air towards her in greeting.

 

“Yes, Southern France was beautiful and we loved it, thank you for asking about our vacation.” She sticks her tongue out, shrugging her way out of the light leather. “Where’s Cheyenne? _She'll_ care about how much I loved our trip and will properly bask in reports of my vacation at her brother's house without caring I'm late.” Adam half rises, like he's heading for the other side of the rift manipulator and Gwen freezes, one arm still in her sleeves. “Who the hell is this?” Her outrage mingles perfectly with a bit of fear, tugging at that dark, anxious place inside Ianto that keeps him on edge enough that he can't keep from pausing by the door ready to fight. By the stairs Jack looks the same and even Owen has hesitantly pushed himself halfway to his feet, beady little eyes cutting nervously around the room. Only Adam is smiling, arms out and grin wide as he skirts around Tosh, crossing the floor in long strides to look up at Gwen teasingly.

 

“Just because that's what I said to you on your first day...” He takes the half flight at a jog, clamping his hand down on the curve of Gwen's shoulder, shaking her teasingly. “Remember?” Gwen stares at him, their eyes locked on each other for an almost too long moment before she smirks slyly, thumping the ginger man in the chest with the side of her fist.

 

“Sorry, couldn't resist. Come here you!” She hurls herself at him, laughing as she hangs from the back of his neck and kicking her feet. In the corner Owen has gone bright red, sinking as low in his seat as he can without melting through it and Ianto rolls his eyes at himself for letting the argument with Cheyenne get his fight or flight instinct so keyed up that he's jumping at shadows. “It's good to see you!” Gwen clomps her way down to the main floor, stopping by Tosh's desk and smiling down at her vacantly, as if confused. “You're looking good Tosh. Is that a new shirt?”

 

“Gwen!” Cheyenne's voice is high and shrill with excitement and Owen flinches as the door to the conference room slams open hard enough to bounce. “Come here now! Right now, grab a box of crap and get up here since my usual partner in crime has deserted me to work with her _boyfriend._ ”

 

“Here.” Adam takes the lighter of the boxes from the stack Ianto's moving, rolling his eyes jovially as he shares a look with Ianto before passing it to Gwen. “Take this and get up there before she wakes the weevils making all that noise.”

 

“Shut it Adam, you _love_ it. You are just as charmed by me as everything else on the planet and the only reason you're not wrapped around my finger is because Tosh has you.” She's grinning and flirting, hips swinging as Cheyenne swaggers over to the edge of the catwalk and leans half over the railing, legs crossed neatly at the ankle to keep from flashing the floor. The amount of smooth brown leg between the top of the knee high slouchy emerald green boots and the hem of the mini-skirt from her otherwise severe black suit is promising and Ianto shifts the weight in his arms until the corner of the box is digging a bruise in the flesh of his forearm before he can make himself look away.

 

“You're a vain, spoiled little princess and I adore you.” She glows under his teasing, winking at Tosh when the other woman crosses her arms over her chest, trying to scowl without snickering. “But you can't blame me for Toshiko not joining the hen party. Jack's got me cross referencing reports.”

 

“Good, you're working alone. Then get your shit and get up here Tosh. Any time now.”

 

“I'm working with Owen actually.” Cheyenne leans a little further over the railing, long fishbone braid slithering over her shoulder to dangle down as the woman cranes her neck, searching out her favorite victim.

 

“It's the same useless thing Tosh.” Owen slumps down further in his seat, sliding the box in front of him over enough to hide behind and Cheyenne whips her head around, zeroing in on the movement like a cat stalking prey. “Jack won't care. Probably. Jack!” The immortal man is almost in his office and Ianto watches the entire ridiculous tableau of Cheyenne keeping Owen pinned and squirming under her razor sharp grin, even if she's really watching Jack from the corner of her eye. “Jack, Tosh and Gwen and going to helping me with the cross classifying for languages.”

 

“I've got Tosh and Owen taking a look at an artifact.” The man doesn't even turn around and everyone in the Hub knows she's about to get her way. She normally does in matters that don't endanger anyone, the little tyrant.

 

“No, you've got _Tosh_ looking at an artifact. Owen's just going to sit there messing up everything he touches because he's distracted b-by her, uh, h-her, um, well her...you know, with t-the...” It shouldn't be funny, the way Cheyenne straightens, turning in her toes and fiddling with her fingers, but she does a vicious if hilariously accurate Owen. She cuts into her own words, fingers twitching in a way that manages to turn gracefully feminine hands into nervously effeminate fluttering as she stumbles over herself, gesturing at her chest where Tosh's shirt isn't any lower than it normally is.

 

“Cheyenne.” Jack's warning drawl isn't enough to completely mask the humor in his voice and Ianto watches the back of Owen's neck turn brick red as the smaller man turns his head away from them all, digging distractedly through the box he's trying to hide behind. Cheyenne doesn't even bother pretending to apologize, dismissing Jack as easily as he does them, heading into his office and leaving the woman on the catwalk grinning down at them, eyes locked on where Owen has yet to look up in her direction.

 

“Winning. Come on, let's go paw through Jack's junk, the filthy little space hoarder.” Gwen takes the lightest box from Adam and heads up to the catwalk at a run, resting it on the edge of the rail next to the smaller woman and grinning down at Tosh.

 

“Come on, I've got pictures of the south of France!” Her voice is a cajoling singsong and Toshiko laughs, shaking her head even as she gathers up her purse and mug, jogging up the stairs.

 

“Fine. Let me go put this down and then I've got to grab my box of tech.”

 

“Don't bother, Owen doesn't mind getting it for you. Owen! Grab that big box you're hiding behind so no one knows you're _crying_ and bring it up for Tosh.” She doesn't bother looking down at the man, just turns on her high, thin green heels and links her arm with the other women, tugging them into the conference room with a laugh. Ianto watches her reach behind herself, yanking the door shut with a snick that cuts off more high pitched giggling and scolding from Tosh that's more for form than anything else. Adam looks away from the door, expression well satisfied, and really why wouldn't it be when he's got wild, brilliant Tosh for his own, before wandering off to his workstation leaving Ianto standing in the center of the almost empty floor with an arm full of work that's barely going to be touched today if the giggling princesses upstairs have their way. He sighs and sets the stack on Gwen's desk since it makes a great staging area if she's not intending to work at it. Off to his left Owen is on his feet, thin lips pressed almost invisibly together as he starts carefully repacking the objects Tosh had been working on the first time Ianto passed through. He starts to head back to his office where he can turn the music up loudly, set the headset to monitor all incoming, and work in peace away from the awkward dynamics of the team before sighing in annoyance and turning on his heel to cross the floor, standing next to Owen with his arms crossed.

 

“Look, do you want me to take that up there for you?” The doctor shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the box he's refilling.

 

“I, uh, I've g-got it. I um, I'm not _scared_ to go deal with...her.” There's no need to ask which one he means, not when anyone with a smidgen of common sense knows Cheyenne has Owen not just scared, but _terrified_ of her. Ianto sighs and doesn't say anything else, just helps the smaller man finish gathering up the scattered tools as well, wrapping them carefully in their holder and setting it all on top of the large crate.

 

“Alright. I'll be working up here if you need a refill or something.” The humiliated glare being sent at the box held in trembling hands says Owen knows that Ianto's babysitting again, hovering around the main floor to step in where Jack won't if he feels things are getting out of hand. Ianto refuses to let himself huff in annoyance although he shares an exasperated look with Adam as Owen hoists the crate and shuffles off towards the stairs.

 

“Don't know about a refill, but I wouldn't mind a first cup.” The ginger man makes an exaggerated pouting face. “You skipped me.”

 

“No I didn't.” Yes he did. He _forgot_ Adam in the first run of the coffee rounds somehow. “I got distracted which is a completely different thing. I've got to get mine and Gwen's on its way. Do you want a biscuit or anything while I'm in there?”

 

“And let Tosh catch me snacking on junk first thing in the morning? I'm starting to think you don't like me and are trying to get me hurt Ianto Jones.”

 

***

He's going insane. At least a bit because Ianto cannot for the life of him remember how Adam takes his coffee. It's not much as far as useless 'super powers' go, but Ianto has always been able to look at a person and tell you within ten minutes of meeting them what they drink. The right coffee, the perfect tea, the booze of choice; it's just one of those weird useful talents that some people in the world have and for the first time ever his is on the fritz. He stands in front of the lazy-Susan filled with flavor syrups and sugars with his own black two sugars and Gwen's French vanilla chocolate syruped sugar shock growing room temp as he glares down at the generic yellow smiley face mug with its untouched black regular stuck in the middle of it. It's not even Adam's bloody mug because he can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

“Hey, did the machine explode?” Adam's quiet but Ianto still hisses as he jostles into the mug and burns his hand on the bitter brew as it sloshes over the rim.

 

“I...I think I need you to get Jack for me. I think I've been exposed to something Adam. I keep forgetting things. I don't...I don't know which one of these mugs is yours, or how you like your coffee and I _did_ forget you earlier. Like you weren't even there. I'm not sure what to do, which is weird because I _always_ know what to do.”

 

“Hey.” Adam's hand is wide, spanning the entire crook of Ianto's shoulder as he claps it down there, squeezing gently. “It's fine. It's just the stress from this thing with Cheyenne and Jack. It's made you a little absent minded this morning, but if anyone deserves a brain fart, it's you. Two creams, three sugars and that's my mug it's in, remember?” Ianto blinks past the rush of lightheadedness, he has really got to remember to eat breakfast regularly now that he's off on his own again, and tries not to be embarrassed that he just had the smallest, mildest mental breakdown he's ever heard of over coffee with a witness present.

 

“I will pay obscene amounts for you to forget that just happened.” He spoons three heaping piles of raw sugar into Adam's mug and stirs, handing it to the man with his butt on the counter, eyes sparking with amusement as the slightly older man forces his face into blandness.

 

“Forget what?” Their fingers brush as Ianto hands over the coffee.

 

“Exactly.” Adam slides down off the counter, sipping at his mug and humming with pleasure as he drinks, the two of them wandering back towards the workspace. “Come on, let's go make sure Cheyenne hasn't managed to talk Owen into hanging himself for her evil amusement.”

 

“You don't seem to think very much of your ex lately.”

 

“I think she'd gleefully torture Owen all day every day if she could work it into her schedule.” The main work floor is unsettlingly empty with everyone sequestered into cliques or holed up alone. Adam follows Ianto, eyes bright with interest as the boy goes wide, dropping his own mug off at his seldom used station. “I dunno man, she hasn't changed at all, she's always been kind of high strung, sharp tongued, and mean but this is like someone took every bit of sweetness in her and replaced it with spite. She's....she's pissing me off is what she's doing. Like this thing with Indiana? Nothing but spite.” He pauses on the stairs, shaking his head down at the man below him. “Never mind. Get up here with me already. If I go by myself I'm rescuing him, if you're there then he's being ordered to get back to work.”

 

“I love how none of you give two craps about chain of command and bossing around superior officers until it does something for you.”

 

“I see we're letting power go to our head again. Come on. If she makes him cry I might give in to the urge to punch him a bit until he mans up, at least a little. The corner of his mouth quirks up at the sound of Adam sputtering into his mug and then running to catch up.

 

“You try to kill me with coffee and laughter but your ex is the one out to wreak death and disaster? Me thinks something is rotten here.”

 

“Yeah, your genuinely terrible Shakespearean proclamations. Shh, stop looking like you've got coffee in your sinuses and go rescue that man, please.”

 

“Sorry. Sorry.” Adam forces himself to look stern, refusing to let the corner of his mouth quirk upwards no matter how ridiculous Ianto looks trying not to laugh at him. “Here it is, my almost the boss face.”

 

“You're a beast. Let's do this.”

 

The girls have got Gwen's phone sending a slide show of photos across the wall screen, curled up in their chairs and cooing at all the right spots in the narrative while Owen sits awkwardly on the edge of his seat, staring intently at the photos and leaning ridiculously far forward to avoid Cheyenne draped over the back of his chair. The hem of her skirt is a black slash high across the back of her thighs and Ianto points a quelling finger at Gwen when he walks into the corner of the table, smashing his own leg. She smirks but doesn't say a thing, just holding both hands out gratefully for her coffee.

 

“Ianto coffee! Pet, I had to make my own all weekend and it was terrible. I was never meant to grind a bean I think.”

 

“How any of you managed to make it through your days before you met me is a mystery that keeps me awake at night.”

 

“Alright Owen, time to stop slacking off with the birds please.” Cheyenne straightens at Adam's proclamation, sliding into her own chair and slumping back in it with her legs stretched out and crossed neatly at the ankles as she grins at Owen, just grins, until he stumbles over his own feet standing.

 

“Run along Owen. Didn't Jack give you some useless busywork with a box to keep you out of our way? Go do that.”

 

“Chy...”

 

“Adam...” She drawls his name exactly the way he says hers before sitting up and flicking the lights on. The glass wall flickers out of screen mode and Gwen huffs out a sigh, shoving her phone in her purse. “Yes, I know, work and the queen, save the world, blah blah blah. We're doing it. Now get lost; you want results but you're distracting my techie. You know she's got this thing for gangly red heads in positions of power.” Adam laughs at Cheyenne's airy complaint, kicking the chair Owen was in under the table and out of the way.

 

“Gangly, _good looking_ gingers in positions of power sweetie. Can't forget that I'm hot.”

 

“You'll do. Now fuck off, seriously, or I'm turning the lights back off and we're going back to talking about the fact that Zane has let his wife redecorate the house and it's just...tragic now.”

 

“Decorating?” If the shudder that runs down Adam's back is faked Ianto can't tell the difference. “There must be some autopsy photos I can sort by degrees of nausea inducing wounds instead. Come on men,” He slings one long arm over Owen's shoulder and the other around Ianto. “Let's get out of here before they start talking tiles and linens and our balls crawl inside us in protest.” Owen, of course, goes brick red at the word, stumbling over the power cord that's been running from the wall to the table for the last year the same way he does every time and all but pulls them from the room to escape the cascade of girlish giggles that follows. “Gentlemen, we have bearded the dragon in her den and live to tell the tale. Let's celebrate by working, shall we?”

 

***

 

The weevils are rowdy today, loud enough that he can hear them howling and screaming before the heavy cell block door even swings forward on its hinges. Already he can hear Janet lowing, voice warbling loudly over the snarling of the two juveniles that are never going to get re-homed with another pack since Gwen and Cheyenne keep sneaking down to the cell block to hand feed grapes to aliens. The light flickers on, a motion response to him stepping foot on the tile and the sound, already at ear piercing levels doubles. The largest of the under aged pair comes upright with a snarl, hurling himself against the glass and slamming his palms against the glass with a blood curdling screech when Jack goes to walk past without so much as a flinch.

 

“Hey!” He bangs back on the glass and watches the little male reel backwards. “Save it!” Normally that's all it takes to shut down the noise in the weevil block. Once you bully past the aggression displays, the aliens are easily cowed by his shouts when they aren't rabid and feasting on human flesh. That one shout should have sent the little weevil scurrying to its sibling for protection and comfort. Instead it runs at the glass again, flat black eyes tracking Jack's every movement as it slams its hands against the door and yowls. “Keep it up and you're going to end up on Owen's table getting fixed. Look, you're upsetting Janet.”

 

Something's upsetting the old female anyway, enough that she's pacing her cage violently, snarling and howling in his direction every time she whips around. Jack leans against the glass to Janet's cell, trying to line his gaze up to whatever she's glaring at when she's not looking at him and feels the room begin to tip as he stares into the cell diagonally across the hall.

 

“Hello freak.” The Master slips his hands into the pockets of his suit, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he smiles. “Did you miss me?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I think you _did_ , cause you can't stop looking.” The Time Lord's voice is dark and playful in a way Jack is frighteningly familiar with and the immortal forces his knees perfectly straight, shoving his shaking hands into the pockets of his great coat so that the smaller man can't see him ball them into fists so tight his nails threaten to slice through the skin. “Do you _dream_ about me freak? Tell me I managed to carve my mark deep enough in you for that.”

 

“Jack?” Gwen's voice drifts ahead of her as she clomps down the stairs. His mouth is dry, throat swollen shut in fear as he parts parched lips to try and call out a warning. The Master grins at him, resting his hand against the inside of the glass, fingers drumming out that mind numbing four count that can be beaten out against a body with two inch lead pipes until everything inside the torso is a ruptured, splintered mess, but only if you keep your swings short and the wrists limber.

 

“Tell her freak. Tell her that there's a scary dead man in the cells. I'll wait.”

 

Looking away from the glass wall is hard because the Time Lord is worse than an Angel; waiting until you've blinked, or looked away, or had your eyes plucked out and thrown at you hard enough to burst against your skin before looming over you out of nowhere to _really_ get started. It's only the thought that he might not be hallucinating, that the Master might really be there and his team might need protecting that forces him to turn his eyes to Gwen's face as she bounces cheerfully into the cell block.

 

“There you are. Ianto's rounding up lunch orders and... You okay?” The chipper patter trails off as the woman crosses the hall, never so much as glancing at the empty cell Jack was just staring into.

 

“Yeah, fine.” His laugh is off, sounds strained and nervous even to him as he slings an arm around Gwen's shoulder and steers them away from where he apparently just had a small but intense psychotic break. “Shouldn't eat my own breakfasts maybe.” He can't keep from peering over his own shoulder, unsure if _not_ seeing the Master is worse than seeing him, and bites back the yelp as Gwen's hand cracks down across his behind.

 

“So, did you miss me while I was gone?”

 

“Oh, were you gone?” She dodges the wide swipe of his arm in her direction, feinting just out of reach and loitering in the doorway. Her laugh is full as he makes a quick break in her direction and she whirls on the balls of her feet, dashing off up the stairs. Jack looks back at the empty cell, stares at the Weevils who are perfectly silent, as if they had never made so much as a sound, and takes off after Gwen at a run to get his order for lunch out in time.

 

***

 

Tosh and Cheyenne are perched side by side at the Rift monitor by the time he makes it upstairs, Gwen flopped down on the couch next to Ianto. She'd look very much like she'd been there the entire time, if it weren't for the fact that she's flushed from her laughing dash and the file in her hand is being held open in Ianto's direction upside down. Ianto sighs once without looking at either of them and reaches over, plucking the folder from Gwen's grip, spinning it the right way 'round, and slipping it back into the woman's unembarrassed hands.

 

“I would have figured it out. Eventually.”

 

“See, it's weird,” Tosh leans closer, tapping the monitor. “It says the rift opened two days ago but nothing came through.”

 

“Apart from me!” Jack pauses on the stairs, watching as Owen shoves a small stuffed animal that kind of looks like a rat around the side of the monitor in Tosh's direction, wiggling it. Gwen chuckles because she thinks Owen is goofy and adorable and the medic laughs shyly, squeezing it to make it squeak. Tosh sighs in annoyance as Cheyenne looks at her and grins meanly.

 

“ _What_ is that?”

 

“It's...it's a screen cleaner. I um, I thought you might uh, like it.” It's painful to see the persistent hope on his face and Jack resigns himself to the fact that he's going to have to have a talk with Owen soon before all those stiletto bootprints being ground into the man's heart wrecks Jack's medic. “Do you...do you like it?” There's such raw hope on his face, poor Owen who never learned not to wear his heart on his sleeve, as the woman reaches forward and plucks the little plushie rat from his grip, looking back and forth between it, the beaming bespectacled face peering at her over the monitor and then to Cheyenne who's got the side of her fist pressed against her mouth to keep from laughing.

 

“Just what I needed, a small rodent staring at me all day while I try to work.” She looks down at it again before pasting a wide, obviously fake smile across her face. “I think I'll call it Owen.”

 

The medic sinks into himself, eyes down as Cheyenne loses her battle with laughter, slumping over onto Tosh as she giggles.

 

“They must have been out of nerdy little frogs. Come on Tosh, it's fine. Nothing came out of the Rift. Let's get back to work so Owen can sniff your chair in peace.”

 

“Chy!” They tumble out of their chairs, heels clicking loudly as the two women hurry across the floor, snickering and shoving, leaving the doctor whey-faced and clutching a folder to his chest like a shield as he stares longingly as the little brown plushie dangling from Toshiko's fingers before sighing deeply and shuffling off back towards the autopsy bay.

 

“Poor thing, he's like a little puppy bringing her sticks.” Gwen's got her sympathetic coo out in full force, turning the schematics inconveniently away from Ianto as she leans forward to watch Owen trudge down the stairs. “When's he going to realize he hasn't got a chance?”

 

“When's he going to stop going anywhere near Tosh when she's with Cheyenne is the better question.” Ianto's shrugged out of his jacket at some point and has the sleeves of his pristine white shirt rolled perfectly flat against the swell of his forearms as he uses a set of gold plated jewelers tools to tighten something according to the drawing Gwen's holding less than steady for him. “They're exponentially meaner in each other's company.”

 

“He can't help it. He's an optimist in love.” Jack shrugs as the three team members left on the floor look over at him on the stairs. “He's idolized Tosh since the day they met. You know what they say: Love's blind.”

 

“I think we've gone well past 'Love's blind' and into 'Love is a battlefield'.” Ianto grunts in satisfaction as the little cylinder in his hand hums and begins to glow a soothing lavender color. “One alien nightlight, repaired.”

 

“Well I think it's sweet.” Adam doesn't look up from his slow hunt-and-peck typing at the keyboard. “Leave Owen alone.” Ianto snorts in derision, settling the small tube back into an elaborately twisted metal cage.

 

“Tell that to East and West upstairs. Right, I'm off for lunch. Sir, anything?”

 

“Well...” Jack draws the word out until Ianto glances up, shooting him one of those censuring little glares that never do more than get Jack hard. “I don't even know where you're going Ianto. You know what I eat, get it for me.” The boy huffs but stands, carefully unrolling his sleeves before shrugging back into his jacket. He pulls out the PDA that's never too far from his hands during work hours, scrawls something across the screen with the stylus and nods once with a hint of a smile on his face before disappearing out the rolling door. Gwen's already carefully adjusting the file that goes with the glowing lantern, snapping new photos of the thing working before putting everything together into one of the hundreds of small clear plastic boxes they've got waiting to rehome things in. “Don't forget to get them coded for the scanner.”

 

The bar codes wereIanto's idea. He and Tosh had worked side by side for weeks in every down moment they had converting the programing that came with the huge RFID kit the Welshman had proudly wheeled in. He'd been grinning widely, dangling a hospital bracelet from his fingers the entire time he gave his presentation on how outfitting anything being archived with one of the information heavy bar codes would make indexing and locating artifacts and their corresponding files idiot proof. This year’s audit is the system's trial run and so far everything that's been identified has ended up in a neat little clear box with a huge barcode label slapped across the front that shows up as a ping with name, file number, and a brief description on the hand held scanner the Welshman has dangling from his belt.

 

“Um...no one's allowed to touch the RFID system except for Ianto or Tosh, remember? They drew that huge flowchart about all the ways they have to make us regret messing up their new system?” The woman chuckles lowly, initialing the corner of the box and folder both before settling them off to the side together. “Tosh drew that stick figure doing all the work by hand because it was locked out of all the computers?”

 

“Oh yeah. Keep doing what you're doing then.”

 

The crates scattered around Jack's office are full of the more dangerous odds and ends, piled high with things that might injure someone if handled incorrectly. The ones that are already functional or can be easily repaired will be moved to the secured archives and the rest will be stripped down as far as possible, numbered, tagged and stored as parts in the main archives. Right now there's a Castiellian chromashifter on his desk with a cracked power pack that needs to be removed. The manhole cover is open because his bunker is blast rated up to 100kg of TNT and sometimes accidents happen. His entire desk has been cleared off and covered with a nonreactive drop cloth. The thing crackles and whines almost too softly for Jack to hear it as he gingerly places the thick, hinged hoop over the silk lined lead before rolling his tool box up to his elbow and flopping down in his chair. Jack's pretty sure he knows how to do this just from looking at it, since odds are good that's a forty-ninth century plasma cell in which case he has the right sized Rhenium plated hex key.

 

Of course if it's a forty-fifth century plasma _pack_ then he needs the Osmium plated key and there may or may not be a chemical reaction that he can't quite remember the details of clearly. His vortex manipulator scans the object and the holographic projection it spits out sputters in and out of clarity for a long moment before solidifying into clear sharp blue light. It _is_ in fact a cell from the forty-ninth and surprisingly all the associated files, including the schematics are still there. The burnout a century ago damaged more than just his travel circuits; a full exabyte of data was burned away in the systems failure, five times that partially corrupted leaving huge holes in the straps memory. It's always a toss-up if his manipulator can pull the information he wants when he wants it.

 

The gyroscope under the lens keeps the glowing blueprint stable in the air once he 'pins' the image in place and gets down to work. Getting the not-really-a-battery out of the cosmetic toy is the hardest part as Jack spends more than fifteen minutes looking through every carefully designed, specially coated bit and key looking for one that will fit and then another ten forcing a similarly shaped bit into the screw heads and muscling them out without stripping the threads just in case it turns out he can repair the plasma cell. The chromashifter is just a cheap easy way to temporarily change the pigments in several races including humans and Jack thinks it might be a fun thing to let the team play with if he can fix the battery, because with the thing leaking power the way it is now, the machine has an unfortunate habit of destabilizing the pigments permanently. It made the test rats excellent at camouflage, but they had a bad habit of automatically shifting to match the background wherever they were until the day they died.

 

He's not sure exactly when he begins smelling it, but the plasma cell has been separated from the machine and he's in the middle of taking the manifold apart with the most expensive hex key set in the United Kingdom when Jack actually recognizes the spicy, salty smell that's been wafting through his office for a while now. It's a very specific scent; out of dozens of worlds and time zones Jack's never come across anything that smells quite like the Simar winds that swept in from the south over the Boe, blowing across the gulf of the Black ocean and through the scrub forests. It's not quite briny, almost like sheets of green cinnamon bark and not really like being in the middle of a Linden grove all at the same time. It's a comforting smell since the start of storm season was always the end of Raiding season and Jack freezes because there's well over a century between him and the last time he breathed in air scented like this. There's no reason he should be breathing it now.

 

He's not being electrocuted, or completing a plasma circuit when he checks. According to the vortex manipulator there's no radiation leak coming from anything in the room, no reason at all for the smell that continues to linger in the air around him. The hex key clicks against the plasma manifold as Jack lets it slip from trembling fingers, scrubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

 

“Jack, are you alright?” Adam's voice startles him more than it should, the young man ignoring the fact that Jack's door is closed for safety reasons during audit time to let himself into the office.

 

“No, I'm not. Help me down to the Autopsy bay and call down to Owen, tell him to prep all the scanners. I'm having visual and auditory hallucinations and now olfactory as well.” He forces himself to grin. “Don't need to be a brain surgeon to know that's a brain issue.”

 

“It is, actually, a brain issue. Good for you.” Adam leans against the side of the desk, pressing his pale narrow hands down over Jack's. “I talked to you earlier Jack, gave you some very special commands, remember?”

 

“Yes.” He didn't, until the man asked. Now he remembers the way Adam's voice echoed in every part of him, choking and compelling at the same time. Remembers the weight of his eyes and the bruising grip of his fingertips dug into either side of Jack's spine as his body locks up, perfectly still because he can't move when Adam's touching him _and_ talking. He forgets how to move, forgets to be angry. Sitting still and listening though, that he remembers how to do.

 

“Good. It's not a big deal Jack, these things happen sometimes. The shifting around in your brain to make room for myself, well it isn't really _healthy_ for your kind. It shakes out some of the emotional shit you people carry around with you. In fact, it tends to kill within a couple months. Not that _you_ need to worry about that. The more that gets changed, the more your brain misfires, trying to get you to notice something's wrong, that's all. Funny, the way your bodies stay honest when your mind is compromised.” Adam stares off contemplatively for a moment before smiling and sweeping his thumb soothingly over the ridge of Jack's knuckles. “Alright Jack, I didn't tell you anything about your memories being compromised and you'll forget everything about it when I move my hand away. When I came in you asked if I smelled anything weird. When I said I didn't, I took you down to Owen. You're having cluster headaches, something you were exposed to in the past week or so, but you're still cleared for duty. You're just going to take some pain killers and work through it, remember?”

 

The smell is gone, finally, but there's a strange pins and needles tingling to Jack's fingers, like the blood wasn't flowing right to his fingertips only to come back too fast. He shakes his hand out with a hiss, massaging the palm with the ball of his thumb and grimacing up at Adam while he does.

 

“It's ridiculous, I'm _immortal_ Adam. What kind of immortality comes with something as stupid as cluster headaches?” The light in the room is flickering softly, pulsing brighter and darker in a way that's definitely going to bring on the pain to go with the rest of the symptoms he's been dealing with all day.

 

“The kind that makes you overly comfortable touching strange things so that you get exposed to things that _give_ you cluster headaches. Dumb ass.”

 

“Don't mutiny today Adam, my head is not in the mood. Now, get off my desk before you put your hand down on that raw plasma circuit I haven't turned off. You'll never make another mistake around alien tech again if you touch that.”

 

“Oh right.” Jack reaches out, bracing the drop cloth as the ginger man slides off the corner of the desk. “Well, I came up to tell you Ianto's back with the food and you've got grilled chicken club with cheese getting cold in the conference room. Come on, food will help.”

 

“Yeah, I'll be right there. Just got to finish up with this cell. You're my second, go boss them around and feel free to break out the squirt gun if they misbehave. Also, good call getting me to Owen. I know I'm not the easiest patient to deal with.”

 

“Well, in your defense, the doctor seems a lot less vital when you can take a fatal injury and walk it off. Besides, you know me Jack.” Adam's grin is wide and bright as he tucks his thumbs into his pockets, rocking back onto his heels. “I love to help.”

 

***

 

His team's already mostly done eating by the time Jack comes through the door of the conference room and glowers at the stack of crates in his chair. Cheyenne's got her work sprawled halfway across the table, sheets covered in neon post-it's stuck up all across the walls while everyone else crowds elbow to elbow at the other end of the table.

 

“Don't start complaining about the mess Jack.” She points at him with her fork, not bothering to look up from the legal pad she's scribbling on with her other hand. “It took half the day to get things _this_ organized and if you think I'm breaking down four and a half worth of work so you can sit in your chair you are sadly mistaken.”

 

“I question your definition of organization.”

 

“Says the owner of the 'I-is-for-I-don't-care-Ianto-will-do-it' drawer.”

 

“The I drawer on the filing cabinet is perfectly organized, thank you.” And thanks to Ianto. “Where's Owen?” He holds up a finger as Cheyenne looks up quickly. “Only answer if it's productive.” The way she pouts is still cute as Jack drops roughly in the chair closest to Cheyenne, yanking the only closed paper bag across the table towards him.

 

“I'm over here.” A hand just barely shows over a stack of folder on the other side of the table. Jack half stands and then sits back down quickly, burying his face in his hands in frustration and taking a deep breath.

 

“Owen, _why_ are you eating on the floor?” Except Jack knows why because he just sat in the only empty chair.

 

“Oh, I uh, I brought a, um, well _quite_ a bit of work up with me and the uh, the space it would take up wouldn't uh, wouldn't leave much room for everyone to eat.” Next to him Chy shrugs as soon as she feels his eyes on her.

 

“Don't blame _me_ , he actually did stumble up here with this huge stack of files that he was cross checking and flopped down in the corner to spread them all out. Everyone offered to shuffle chairs for him and everything.” There are nods from around the table and Jack frowns as he opens his lunch.

 

“Well then put the work down until we're done eating Owen. It's not important enough that you have to eat on the damn floor like a weevil. Come sit...what happened to our extra chair? Why are we missing one?”

 

“We don't have one Jack. _I'm_ the extra chair.” Cheyenne waves her fork impatiently.

 

“No, we've got...” His head is starting to ache again, the lights too bright white overhead. “Fine, whatever. Ianto, put an extra chair on our supply list since I've somehow managed to lose one.”

 

“Of course sir.” He's got a napkin tucked into his collar again as he eats a meatball sandwich with a knife and fork, knees sprawled wide enough that they're knocking against Jack's and who's got his own ankle wrapped around Cheyenne's, which gets surprisingly awkward when they all seem to notice it about the same time. The attempt to untangle and shift into their own space without being obvious goes less than perfectly if the little smirk Adam's wearing as he looks away from them is any indication.

 

“Anyway.” Cheyenne yanks her leg away, tucking them both under her chair. “I was telling Tosh and I might as well tell you since you're here and save myself a trip to your current death trap of an office. Next time there's a programing overhaul I need the language recognition programs stripped down to bare bones and redone because whoever programed this one in had no fucking idea what they were doing. Just _look_ at what all your computer has recognized as the same language!”

 

A folder slides down the table hard enough to smack into his elbow and Jack stuffs his chicken club in his mouth with a sigh, holding it out of the way with his teeth to wipe his hands clean before flipping open the file while Cheyenne rants.

 

This time when they sprawl into eachother’sspace, hooking ankles and rubbing knees, none of them notice.

 

***

 

Indy's in a terrible mood when his father brings him back, fussing and agitated by everything apparently. His pack-and-play has been shifted to make room to wheel the dolly through with heavier crates and apparently the Rift manipulator blocks the view of the work space if you're less than three feet tall. Ianto grumbles under his breath as he shifts his kid from the playpen to his arms to his hip.

 

“Right, guess you're going to be helping daddy then. Come on cranky, let's go find something for you to bang around while I try and get some work done.”

 

The amount of work Ianto gets done over the next hour is negligible enough to be embarrassing, even though he's got his son in his lap beating a small curved piece of alien alloy that makes weird warbling sounds with a basting brush from the galley. Every time he gets the boy distracted enough to turn back to matching files with artifacts and then divvying them up depending on who is most likely to identify the object, something goes wrong to get the infant fussing again. 'Gen' does not stop what she's doing and come running down the stairs when Indiana sees her walk past the glass wall and neither does Tosh. Owen gets an enthusiastic squeal when he walks past but the moment he turns around, arms out to scoop up the squirming child, Indiana freezes burying his face in Ianto's jacket and whining until the doctor shrugs and sighs.

 

“Must still be mad about his shots. I uh, I _did_ say he needs an outside pediatrician.”

 

“He'll get over it and you will too. Besides, you didn't even have your glasses shoved up on your head. He would have had them before you could say Rift alert.” And then thrown them on the ground, because apparently the funnest of fun new games is 'make daddy buy new glasses for half the team'.

 

“I don't mind. He's a good baby. I love having him around, even when he's got my glasses.” He shoves them up into his hair, ruffling the carefully combed part before taking a knee next to Ianto. Indy peers slowly around the lapel of his father's jacket as Owen brushes the back of his knuckles down the chubby brown leg where the tiny black trouser legs have ridden up in all his squirming. “Hey there you. It's all right, it's just me. Want to come play with me? I'm out of brains, but I have something that might be some kind of stomach?”

 

“Oooh, a maybe stomach.” Not the kind of sentence he thought he'd ever be caught cooing, much less as often as he actually does. “Are you gonna go with Owen?” Apparently peeking at Owen around daddy's shoulder is the extent of Indiana's agreeable interactions today. He whines high in his throat, squirming and kicking until he's half hidden in Ianto's suit, leaving the two men to stare down at the wiggling lump that's getting a little too close to Ianto's holster. “Guess not. Get out of there friend, you're too close to Daddy's gun.”

 

“I should go take a look at that box again. It's in the spectroanalyzer and should be done anyway. Bye Indy.” Persistence and pure size advantage manages to extract ninety percent of his son from Ianto's suit jacket over the next three minutes, but in the end it's Jack's voice echoing around the Hub as he thunders down the stairs calling for coffee that gets Indy's curly head to dislodge itself from somewhere slightly left of Ianto's armpit and jerk up, missing Ianto's chin by a hair.

 

“Ja?”

 

“Yes, Jack. Of course you'll go to Jack. Come on, you can keep an eye on him for me while I make him some coffee.” He loves how serious his kid looks about everything sometimes, staring solemnly up out of those enormous grey eyes as they cross the floor, coming up behind the immortal man as he stands next to Adam's station with his hands on his hips as he looks down at whatever his second in command is showing him. Ianto's opening his mouth to offer to trade his boss a kid for some coffee when Adam stands up, rocking up onto the balls of his feet to stretch and Indiana begins shrieking hysterically. The sound he makes is shrill and frantic as he twists away from Jack, kicking Ianto in the stomach hard enough to all but wind him as the baby tries to climb over him. For a moment he almost fumbles him in the attempt to secure his son in one position and draw his weapon at the same time. “Holy hell kid!” He's not the only one standing there with a gun in hand looking around in confusion. Jack's got the Webley clutched tightly in one hand, already moving to cover Ianto's weak side and shield Indiana from any stray shots that don't seem to be coming. “What's your _problem_ today, son? Jesus!” He holsters his weapon almost as fast as he drew it, scowling in annoyance. The boy continues to make the same siren pitched scream, scrambling hard enough against his father's torso that Ianto's going to have not so tiny bruises all over in a few hours. Frustration melts into worry as Indy stops scrambling all at once, going limp and trembling in Ianto's arms as he shrieks.

 

“Oh, he's fine.” Adam's making that face that people without children make once the screaming starts, the one that says there's no possible excuse for the sound he's being forced to hear. It makes the hackles on the back of Ianto's neck rise and he steps backwards as the man pastes on a falsely patient smile and steps forward with his arms out. “Here, give him over. I can get him to stop.”

 

“No, he'll be fine.” Vaguely Ianto wonders if Jack knows he's still matching Ianto's every step backwards, gun still gripped in his hand. “I just don't think he's feeling well.”

 

“Aw, well, let Uncle Adam take a look. Come here you small thing.” Indiana keeps making that shrill sound of terror that's got Ianto ready to shoot the next thing that so much as makes his kid flinch and right now that's Adam's grasping hands. Upstairs the conference room door slams open and Ianto's not sure when the last time he was so glad to see Cheyenne stomping around as she storms out of the room and down the stairs.

 

“What the fuck? Seriously, I could hear him through the shut door! Jack, put the gun away before you shoot someone. You.”She points ominously at Ianto as she storms across the floor. “Give me my damn baby please.” The screaming tapers off as Cheyenne shoves her way between him and Jack, reaching up and tugging Indy into her own arms, but the fact that it's instantly replaced by hysterical crying that she's having a hard time shushing makes Ianto feel much better about his apparent failings at fathering. The look the tiny woman gives all three of them as she sways smoothly back and forth is sharp enough to flay them, particularly where Adam's hands are still stretched out and actively reaching downwards to pluck Indiana from his mother. “And stop reaching for my fucking kid, Adam or I'll break your fingers. I've _got_ him. For fuck's sake.” She doesn't even attempt to be polite about it, just turning her back on the three of them and stomping all the way over to the base of the stairs before whipping around on her heels to glower at them. “He obviously mustn't feel well, we've moved the entire Hub around to make room for audits and it's overwhelming him, so this is the only warning anyone gets. The next person to set my kid off gets as much of an ass kicking as I can fit in before someone pulls me off. You're all fucking idiots. Come on sweetie pea, mummy's got you. You're okay.”

 

Looking at someone like their heads should be on a pike outside your door while cooing reassuringly in a skill Ianto wants to develop, because it's genuinely impressive on Cheyenne. She closes the door to the conference room much softer than she slung it open, leaving him to shake off the uneasy aggression building behind his eyes while Jack sheepishly puts away his gun.

 

“Well, that was faintly alarming for no good reason.” The Captain claps his hands together. “So, as I was saying, coffee. I need it.”

 

“It's time to caffeinate everyone else anyway. Adam?” The ginger man is still shooting dark looks up at the glass walled room where Cheyenne is pacing around, hands moving in soothing sweeps up and down the curved bow of Indiana's back. “You know how she is about that boy. Bears have _nothing_ on her when it comes to pure maternal aggression, man. I know she's never come at you before, but trust me she'll get over it as soon as he stops crying and might even apologize. You can't take it personally.” Just like that Adam's face clears and he leans to the side, thumping Ianto with his shoulder.

 

“You think I'd be used to her freaking out over her kid by now. Ah well, I can forgive her, I guess.” He flicks his gaze back up to where Indiana is peering tearfully over his mother's shoulder and waves his fingers cheerfully, chuckling as Indy's face disappears. “As long as I get my good bye cuddles before he goes.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day!

 

Adam does not get to hold the baby because at some point when no one's looking Cheyenne kicks everyone else out of the conference room, steals Ianto's keys off his desk to lock to door behind her, and takes off. Ianto tucks his fists into the crook of his elbows, arms crossed as he glares down at the key ring left hanging from the knob of the conference room door. The key to the door is missing, of course, and he snatches the clanking keys up with a snarl of annoyance.

 

“Oh good. I'm so glad she decided that this was a _much_ better place to work than her office. It's so convenient we don't do anything like _eat_ in there on a regular basis, because that would be obnoxious in ways that might prompt me to shake her violently.” There's a scandalized noise from behind him and Ianto rolls his eyes as he turns around to face Owen's indignant face. “What? Shaking your girlfriend is a horrible thing. Shaking your co-workers is fine.” Except it isn't if the look on the medic's face is anything to go by. “Stop making that face Owen, it'll stick that way. What do you want, and it had better not be anything from in there since Cheyenne took the key after she locked the door.”

 

“No, it's not that it's...she did? Really? That's not...well anyway, no, I um, Gwen wants to go home and I can't find Jack or Adam...”

 

“Dammit. Gwen!” The woman peers upwards as Ianto leans over the railing of the catwalk, searching her out. “Gwen, you can't come home from Holiday and then be the second person out the door at five.”

 

“Watch me.” She's already shrugging into her jacket even as she grins up at him with a wink. “It's audits week and Jack doesn't care what hours we work as long as we meet his logging goals. Day one; fifteen logs down, eighty-five to go and that's good enough for me. I'm jet lagged and going home now.”

 

“You're not jet lagged Gwen, you didn't cross a single time zone.”

 

“Can't _hear_ you. Jet lagged and going home now. We'll take the night shift at some point this week, just me, you, some bad telly, a cheap white, and piles of alien crap that makes even less sense than normal.”

 

“Gwen, that's a horrid idea.” He shakes his head on a sigh as she continues to grin up at him and pack her purse by touch, knowing Gwen isn't about to be talked out of going home when it's technically quitting time. “That white had better not be cheap and we're not getting drunk again because last year we ended up pissed and sorted two entire crates by color and likelihood of being a sexual aide.” Behind him Owen makes a choked noise that they both ignore.

 

“Yeah, but we ended up being right on two of those guesses. _Fine_ , the booze will be posh and our decision making skills will not suffer. Much. Good night Ianto! Night Owen! Night Tosh!” There's a muffled reply from somewhere under Ianto's feet and just like that, Gwen's out the door to get back to Rhys leaving Ianto locked out of the conference room with crates and bins piled eye high in several places around the Hub and no place to eat dinner.

 

“Damn. Right, I'll be down in my office if anyone needs me. So, don't need me.” Tosh winks at him as he thunders down the metal stairs, grabs as many identified but unlogged items as he can and stacks them on the wheeled pallet before dropping his jacket over it all and beginning to push. “I'll be inputting all these into the system Tosh. Could you maybe take a look at that box Owen's been working on all day? He's kind of...” He cuts his eyes up to where the medic has gone up another level, already halfway across the Hub on his way to the greenhouse.

 

“Being really inefficient?” The woman gives him half a smile and twists her hair up, securing it with a couple pencils. “I can do that.”

 

“Thanks. His big problem is that he's trying to deal with it like an organic thing. Again.” Because no matter how often you tell Owen that the procedures aren't the same, he insists on testing things like he fully expects them to come alive halfway through and complain about being broken. Tosh stands up, straightens her clothes and points at Ianto.

 

“Keep your bloody ear piece in because I may need you to come rescue the both of us before he humiliates himself.”

 

“He can't help himself Tosh.” Ianto cuts his eyes at where Owen's wandering around the glass walled room, watering his genuinely impressive collection of alien flora. “You could try being a little nicer to him you know. Maybe he'd stop humiliating himself so badly that he embarrasses all of us by proxy if he didn't feel like he has to try so hard to get your attention.”

 

“I _can't_ Ianto. I've tried being nice to him and he takes it as encouragement. Are you Gwen now, running around trying to get everyone to just be friends?” She looks so frustrated just thinking about it that Ianto backs off, hands in the air.

 

“Nope. You just...do what you're going to do. Maybe a _bit_ more gently though? He's the kind of stereotype that _other_ nerds stuff in lockers to keep from being lumped in with, but he's not a _bad_ guy Tosh. Just, he's got no social skills.”

 

“Oh yeah? You keep saying that, because I think he's starting to _really_ appreciate the way you've been his hero lately.” The thought of Owen following him around with the same dopey look on his face, leaving weird, slightly childish, little gifts around the Hub is distressingly less funny. “I see you suddenly understand. I'll _try_ , but the minute he crosses the line you get up here and deal with it yourself. It's my anniversary and I'd like to take Adam and get out of here before it's officially over.”

 

“I'll do my best to get you guys out in time. If Jack and Adam ever show back up tell them I'm working out of the archives and dinner is a delicious plate full of fend for yourself.”

 

It's a good plan, settling comfortably in his rolling chair, feet up on the nearby filing cabinet as Ianto double checks to make sure every artifact and file have been identified, matched, and all the paperwork filled out correctly. The sound system in his office isn't nearly as nice as the setup from the house, or even his flat, but the little three piece speaker set is solid enough to handle turning the volume all the way up and the mini sub on the floor next to his desk pumps hard enough to vibrate the wood. There's still a playlist on his iTunes labeled 'music sneak' of various tracks that Cheyenne was prone to sneaking onto their computers anytime she got close enough and it's not worth the effort to figure out what he actually wants to listen to if he navigates away from it. The desk begins to pulse with the bass vibrations as Ianto turns the volume just short of uncomfortable, picks up the scanner and gets to work inputting data and sending it to the mini RFID printer set up in the corner next to the much larger printer/fax combo that is easily a decade old.

 

He's made it through two Slipknot songs, some DramaRama, and something with what sounds like a full Mariachi band in the background when his ear piece gives just enough of a warning for him to fumble the sound down without dropping the open folder in his lap that he's scanning through for missed information.

 

“Torchwood; Jones.”

 

“Ianto, there's someone in my house!” He doesn't notice the papers scattering across the floor, forms fluttering under the desk as he pushes himself to his feet and snatches his jacket from the back of his visitor's chair as he breaks for the main floor in a run.

 

“Is he secured Gwen or do you need backup? If you need backup just say you're fine.”

 

“No, I've got my gun on him, he's not going anywhere.” Her voice trembles in that mix of rage and anxiety that Ianto's heard from her often enough on missions to know that whoever was stupid enough to break into Gwen and Rhys' house is in very real danger of getting shot. “Ianto, he has a key and he knows my name.” There's a hint of genuine fear when her voice cracks on name that has Ianto coming up the stairs faster than before. The sound of running at speed over metal grating works better than any other alarm in the Hub. Everyone left in the Hub is waiting at the head of the stairwell by the time Ianto clears the last two risers at once. Owen is already running for the medbay at the expression on Ianto's face and Jack lifts his fingers to his ear piece, patching in when Ianto snaps his fingers in his direction, Adam half a beat behind him.

 

“Gwen, what's wrong?” Ianto lets himself slump against the wall, trying to slow his racing heart as Jack takes over the conversation. In his ear Gwen is shrieking at the intruder in between entreating someone to come help her and Jack's already got his coat swung up on his shoulders as he listens. “We'll be right there. Don't shoot him unless you have to.” The ear piece cuts out as Jack cuts the connection. “Owen, I want you on standby. Ianto, you and Adam with me please.”

 

***

 

They make it all the way to Gwen's building before Ianto realizes he has no idea why he's in the truck and he bets Jack doesn't either. It's a stalker more likely than not which is frightening for Gwen, but hardly something that calls for three Torchwood agents. The engine cuts as Jack whips up to the curb outside the secured building and Ianto twists sideways in the seat, resting his back against the door as he swivels the mobile station around. Jack gets out of the truck without so much as looking in the backseat, sparing them the awkward moment that would become. Instead, Ianto knocks his com into open, listening to Jack as Gwen buzzes those two up before pulling up the supply list that he won't work on at all while he listens to Jack save the day.

 

Except that there's apparently no day that needs saving.

 

“What's...going on?” It's the genuine confusion in Jack's voice that has Ianto sitting up straight. Gwen's voice is shrill enough to carry but not clear enough to actually understand from however far away she is. What's clear is how very freaked out she is, something that doesn't seem to be helped by Jack's befuddlement. “He _is_. It's _Rhys_.” Which, Ianto supposes explains about half the confusion going on upstairs right now. The keys are still in the switch, and Ianto leans over the front seats, flipping the radio over to official channels and dropping it into open to keep up while he thumbs his ear piece over to Bluetooth and calls Owen's cell.

 

“Harper.”

 

“Owen, I think we're going to be bringing Gwen in for a check over.” Voices are raised upstairs, enough that Ianto can make out Rhys' not completely unfounded fears that this is an issue with Retcon and Gwen's strung out insistence that she has no idea what any of them are talking about. “There wasn't an intruder. It was Rhys. She doesn't know who he is.”

 

“No.” The medic sounds genuinely horrified. “That's, well it's just, poor Gwen.”

 

“Yeah.” Ianto frowns as Rhys shouts about Adam. “And it may be contagious because Rhys doesn't know who Adam is. Look, from the sound of it Jack's staying with Rhys and sending Gwen in so start setting up for a standard and whatever else you think he's going to want from you.”

 

“That's him ringing in now.” The line cuts because Jack isn't famous for his patience while working on the best of days, much less when he thinks any part of his team is in trouble. Ianto closes out of the supply list that didn't get more than a notation to order an extra chair and goes over the back of the seat, dropping into the driver's side as Adam's voice crackles over the radio.

 

“Ianto, did you hear all of that?”

 

“Most of it.” Which is apparently good enough because Adam drops off the line before they even clear the security door, Gwen tucked protectively under his arm as they dash across the street for the big black truck idling under the street light. The April days have been warming lately, but night is still chill enough that Ianto hisses through his teeth as the wind whips inside the car along with the two of them, piling themselves both into the backseat. Adam slams the door behind himself herding Gwen to the center of the bench seat as he settles in behind Ianto.

 

Turning the heat all the way up for the entire ride him gets him a couple annoyed glares from the backseat and two cracked windows, but doesn't do a thing for the phantom chill that settles over him until he's safely back at the Hub with the truck parked in its normal spot. Adam and Gwen get out and pause at the door, his hands wrapped around hers as they speak quietly and Ianto grits his teeth over the fact that neither of them seems to be in any kind of hurry and squeezes past them to punch his code in rougher than normally.

 

“You're lucky Jack wasn't here, he would have made you both key yourself in for loitering suspiciously.”

 

“Yes, well Jack's with Rhys and I'm not loitering, I'm _comforting_. Go make sure Owen's all set up.” Ianto goes, even though they all know for a fact that Owen's ready because when it comes to doing what he's actually hired for the doctor is on it. Still, he disappears up through the lower levels, ducking into the service halls and startling a half swallowed shriek out of Owen when they almost collide as Ianto lets himself out of the back halls closest to the medical bay.

 

“Jesus you're quiet!” Owen presses the heel of his palm against the center of his chest, inhaling slowly. “Is, um, isn't Gwen with you?”

 

“She and Adam are coming up the regular way. Just thought I'd see if you need anything else. Food or anything since you're apparently going to be here a while longer?”

 

“No.” A flush creeps up Owen's face as he shakes his head. “You said fend, so I ran to the deli while you were in your office and got a couple of sandwiches. For, um, for Toshiko and I.” Ianto slides his hands in his pockets and looks away from the nervous hope on Owen's face before he does something helpful and possibly a bit cruel like grab the smaller man by the shoulders and shake him viciously while forcing him to repeat 'Tosh doesn't love me, but other women like doctors' over and over while pouring liquor down his throat. Ianto's pretty sure if he could get Owen pissed, like good and half blind drunk, that the doctor could work far enough past his social retardation to get laid. Or he might just end up liquored up and clinging to Ianto while crying all over his suit. The moment is stretching uncomfortably long as he tries not to laugh at the mental images of Owen with his hair rumpled and sweater vest cast aside literally hurling himself laughing into a pile of women and whiskey warring with the much more likely crying scenario while Owen is probably having soft focus daydreams involving Toshiko, beaches, probably horses, a sunset, and exactly one glass of champagne apiece. The thought is too good and he's having the hardest time trying to keep his face straight as Owen continues to stand there awkwardly. “I guess I'll just...go get the table ready for Gwen.” Ianto just nods because if he opens his mouth he's going to laugh whether he wants to or not and Owen knows it from the look on his face. For a moment, just a flash of a second, the medic gives him a look so full of venom that the laughter dries in his throat before the other man flinches back, squirming his fingers under the bridge of his glasses and pinching roughly at the corner of his eyes. “These lights are going to be the death of me today Ianto. My head is _pounding_.”

 

Headaches and audit week go hand in hand. There's always parts leftover, something that dangerously malfunctions, and no one ever meets Jack's goal of one hundred log ins before week's end, including Jack himself. Ianto claps his hand down on Owen's shoulder, giving him a little shake.

 

“Yeah, well you know the drill. Lots of water, breaks for your eyes, all that good stuff.” Over the quiet murmur of water from the tower the cadence of Adam's voice startles Ianto when he hears them before he sees them, momentarily unfamiliar before the man rounds the corner, Gwen still tucked under his arm and clutching her gun like a security blanket.

 

“Ianto! Jack called, he wants you to grab the cameras and come set up a live feed for Gwen to monitor while Owen runs his tests.”

 

It doesn't take long to get everything gathered up by the door in a pyramid of electronics and now Ianto's on his knees behind one of those stupid carts with a small square telly scrapped down to it like they had at his school, and just like back then the damn thing is on the fritz.

 

“I hate these bloody things. I swear to Christ, Jack stole this piece of shit from my old school.” He rips a strip of gaffers tape loose with his teeth and wraps it around the base of the plug. “It's fucking haunting me, Gwen.” The thing is too old to fasten into the DVR box that the footage is going to record to and Ianto's busy stripping the protective coating off wires so he can rig the co-axle input to connect to his converter. “We re-built half this fucking building and have put in an inventory order twice, how do we keep forgetting there's not a damn television in the medical bay?”

 

“We don't forget, we just don't want Owen down here watching porn all day.” She sounds so serious that for a moment Ianto nods because of course that's the reason except it's not. It's obviously not, because this is _Owen_ for Christ's sake, and he's already red faced and laughing nervously at just the thought.

 

“There, now we _know_ something's wrong with her head, don't we?” The doctor chuckles, tilting her by the chin so he can spread gel against the hollow of Gwen's temple before pressing an sticky electrode pad over it. “Okay, head down for the back of your neck please.” Above his head the dull whispered roar of static finally cuts off sharply into the low, almost inaudible whine of an old tube television on standby in video mode and Ianto stands up and drops the silver tape to the television cart in victory.

 

“Right, I'm off to get this set up then.” He reaches out, squeezing the slope of Gwen's shoulder as he passes. “We'll get you sorted; you'll see.”

 

The drive back to Gwen's is strange. The equipment in the back seat keeps making shadows in the corner of his vision and there's an uncomfortable creeping insistence that he's forgetting something under his skin. The music doesn't help because someone, and he doesn't know who yet, is on a heavy folk-rock kick and they're leaving their CD's and flash drives everywhere. He's pretty sure it's Jack or Gwen, but either way the manic melancholy sound of bass cellos and multiple violins seems to vibrate at the exact pitch of his jangled nerves and he can't make himself turn it down or off. He's gritting his teeth, foot pressing down harder and harder on the gas, tipping his face ever so slightly into the breeze blowing in through the cracked window as he drives the SUV through the streets a bit too fast. He almost blows past Gwen's building, slamming on the breaks hard enough that they scream and jerking the truck around in the middle of the street to whip into a parking space almost too small. Jack's waiting under the awning to the building and he's pissed from the scowl on his face as the Captain crosses the street in long predatory strides to yank the door open, ripping the handle from under Ianto's fingertips. The music is even louder, his thumb pressing on the volume control laid into the steering wheel as he forces himself to take a deep breath.

 

“What was that?”

 

“It wasn't anything.” Jack's too close, pressed half into the door of the truck and he doesn't move back as Ianto swings himself out of the driver's seat only to find himself caught between Jack and the music swelling at his back. “Move Jack.” Jack doesn't move away, sways forward instead until he's pressed against Ianto, arms bracketing the younger man in as Jack braces his forearms against the roof of the truck.

 

“Stop.” It's a growled order from deep in Jack's throat. “You're not shoving past me. Sit back down and look up at me. You ran three separate red lights on the way here, you're all but snarling and this bloody music!” Jack reaches around Ianto, yanking the keys out of the ignition. The sound cuts all at once and Ianto shivers with relief. “That was entirely too loud. Are you just in a strop or do I need to have Owen take a look at you too?”

 

Ianto doesn't sit down, but he does drop his shoulders and stop pressing forward into Jack's space. Slowly the immortal man mirrors him back, stepping slowly out of Ianto's space until he can breathe again.

 

“Sorry. Didn't realize I was in a mood until I was in it. I'm fine Jack. I know the name of my sister, her husband, their kids, my cousin, his fiancé and I could probably name Cheyenne's family off if I had to, but no promises not to leave a kid or two out.”

 

“Well that's not amnesia, that's just the size of her family. Whatever it is, get over it. I don't need to be worried that my entire team is being affected.” It's hard to stay mad when Jack phrases it that way and Ianto takes a deep breath in, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt and forcing himself keep breathing deeply.

 

“Today's been...odd. I'm fine, just need some sleep I think.” Jack snorts, stepping back into the road and slinging open the back door to start unloading cases of electronics into Ianto's grip.

 

“These things only happen during audits week. Every time. I look at the rift predictions, pick the quietest week out of eight and regardless of which one I pick, you all still manage to half kill yourself locked down in our own base by touching things that manage to not hurt you every other week in the year.” Ianto smirks at his boss around the pile of cases being settled into his grip.

 

“It's a talent. Besides, at least we're getting into trouble under your expert guidance.” Jack kicks the door shut with a slam, glaring at Ianto through his lashes as he hefts the two heaviest cases.

 

“You're not as funny as you think you are.”

 

“Yes I am.”

 

***

 

Rhys wanders around the flat like he's forgotten it as well, fingers not quite touching things, hovering centimeters off the surface as if he expects them to crumble to dust under his touch.

 

“She's not hurt though?” It's the third time he's asked since Ianto followed Jack in the door and started setting up cameras, feeding them into the laptop that is part of the system. Jack's over on the other side of the room, running scans on Rhys, the flat, and everything inside it without telling the other man. It's probably nothing here, is almost definitely a result of something Gwen encountered at the Hub, but better not to cause a panic until they know better or else Rhys is going to be burying them in dirty laundry, film canisters, and knickknacks from France.

 

“Nope. Owen would have contacted us by now if he'd found something.”

 

“She'll be fine. This is actually one of the _least_ damaging audits in years. Back in ninety-seven I spent a week thirteen inches tall...” Jack's voice trails off as he looks up from his tablet to see Rhys staring at him, pale and wide eyed while Ianto glowers at him. “But that was a freak coincidence and I dismantled the machine once I was big enough to hold a spanner again. The actual point here is that we're professionals with options to explore and she's well in hand.”

 

“We're ready Jack.” The window is open; black where its feed has yet to start streaming. Ianto's got camera two from medical pulled up in a smaller window as well, watching for some flicker of recognition or eagerness from the woman lying flat on the table with electrodes scattered up and down her head and arms, but if Gwen's feeling anything other nervousness it's not showing on her face.

 

“Right then.” Jack spins one of the dining chairs around, straddling it and cradling the video camera in his hand. “Sit down Rhys and we'll get started. We're going to be scanning her brainwaves while you talk, looking for anything anomalous. Just keep talking, and look directly into the camera, Gwen's on the other side.”

 

It's fucking awful, the expression on Rhys' face as he keeps jerking his gaze from the camera to Jack and then back again. He stumbles over the back and forth as Jack softens his voice, leaning forward and watching Rhys with an expression that so perfectly conveys sympathy without getting too close to pity that Ianto knows the man must have practiced it at some point. Rhys keeps fidgeting with the lapels of his robe or combing his fingers through his hair with every fact about his life with Gwen that he forces out.

 

“...So I say I want to do something else. Something without garlic. So she gets pissed off, because the queues are so long, and I kick off and end up shouting out why I'm changing the recipe.” In the smallest corner of Ianto's screen Gwen has sat upright, leaning forward to stare at the television screen while Adam stands next to her, his thumb sweeping across the nape of her neck as he squeezes reassuringly. His lips move as he says something Ianto can't quite make out and Gwen nods hesitantly. “She, she laughed. She laughed and she called me 'Rhys the Rant' and then she kissed me. Right there in the queue and I, and I, and I thought to myself Jack,” Rhys' voice breaks, but he never looks away from the camera. “I thought, I'm going to marry this bloody madwoman, even if it kills me.”

 

He's glad, very glad, that the man across the table from them can't see the blank look on Gwen's face as she scoots closer to the edge of the bed, leaning ever so slightly closer to the television before backing away and shaking her head dismissively. He doesn't quite shake his head when Jack looks over at him and the immortal man looks away before Rhys can look up from his misery.

 

“Okay. Keep going. Tell me how the wedding's coming.”

 

 

Rhys talks to them, to Gwen through them and their cameras for two hours before the text comes from Owen.

 

_::no reason available, no abnormal readings, no obvious intervention. cleared to return home, may jog memories. If no change will refer nhs tom::_

 

Ianto slides his phone along the table to Jack, giving Rhys what he hopes is a reassuring face as the captain's thumbs fly across the screen, he and Owen exchanging a volley of shorthand until the man pushes his fringe back off his face and nods once before looking up at Rhys.

 

“Okay. That was Owen. The good news is that we're not seeing traces of Retcon or alien technology. The bad news is, we're going to have to take a look at _Gwen_. Owen's clearing her to come home for the night; he's hoping being back at home tonight will shake things back into place.”

 

“And if it doesn't?”

 

“Then I start throwing my weight around until I've got whatever team Owen hand picks assigned to find out what's wrong with my agent. Ianto.” It's hard, pulling his gaze away from the way Gwen keeps trying to look anywhere in the medical bay except the television while she can't keep from twirling her ring. “Gwen's not cleared to drive, just in case. Go pick her up and bring her home while I tear all this down.”

 

Sounds like a plan to him. He gives one more nod to Gwen's fiancé as he jogs down the stairs and slings himself up into the driver’s seat. This time when the music comes on, he just ejects the disc and flings it out the cracked window and into traffic. The cost of replacing it, he decides, will be well worth the satisfaction of knowing he broke this one.

 

Gwen's waiting in the loading bay when he pulls up, sitting on the edge of the raised dock and swinging her dangling feet in agitation. She surges to her feet the moment the SUV comes around the corner and then stands there, frozen with her hands shoved in her pockets until he eases the truck alongside her and leans over, opening the passenger side door and staring out at her.

 

“Gwen, we save the world. You are _not_ going to stand there and be scared of the man who's idea of fancy finger foods is to wrap your boiled eggs in kelp so that they look like ninjas.” The corner of her mouth twitches up as she climbs slowly into the vehicle.

 

“You're making that up.”

 

“Am not. He saw it on some kind of cooking show at three in the morning. He wraps them up in seaweed, sticks little pimentos in for eyes and sends you to work with ninja eggs when you've been fighting.” He watches Gwen from the corner of his eye as she settles into her seat. “If Owen didn't think it would help we wouldn't make you go Gwen, but it might. You love Rhys very much.”

 

“It doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm being sent back to stay the night with a stranger who knows everything about me while everyone tells me to just trust them.”

 

“Well, do you have any particular reason _not_ to trust us on this one Gwen?” She shakes her head mutely in response to his question. “Then a little less doubt would be nice. There's no one on the planet who'd want to hurt you less than Rhys Williams.”

 

***

 

Rhys hasn't said anything since the cameras were packed away. He's perched on the edge of the couch, nursing a beer as he looks past the television on in the corner and ignores Jack where he's leaning against the wall, last of the electronics packed up at his feet while he looks out the window and waits for Ianto to bring Gwen back home. As if summoned, the black truck glides around the corner, slotting into the same slice of curb it vacated not twenty minutes earlier. Rhys is at his elbow before Jack can tell the man they've arrived, staring down at Gwen as Ianto guides her across the street with his hand on the small of her back.

 

“Go buzz 'em in for me.”

 

The hand-off, as it were, goes about how Jack expects it to. Gwen panics at the last moment, snatching for him in panic as he and Ianto head for the door. Her eyes are overly wide, startled and wet as he wraps his hands around her shoulders and gently pushes her back into the flat. Her lip trembles when he gives her one last generic reassurance and behind her Rhys takes a half step forward and then stops, fists clenching as the man forces himself to stay put instead of cradling his fiancée. Ianto trails him out the door, pausing long enough to pull two inches of steel core door shut behind them.

 

“So, what's that all about?” They make it almost to the bottom of the stairs before he can't stop himself from asking; just in case Owen, for some incomprehensible reason, told him without relaying the information to Jack as well.

 

“It's exactly what it looks like. Amnesia; sudden and hopefully temporary. Owen's still checking on possible causes. But he sent her home, so, you know, probably doesn't think there's much he can do.” They reach the car and for a moment they stand there, looking expectantly at each other before Ianto snorts, digging into his pockets and fishing out the keys. They glint under the street light as the boy tosses them over the car, the corner of his mouth tipping up into that smugly pleased little smirk the Welshman wears when things go exactly as he wants them to. The alarm on the SUV chirps when Jack thumbs over the button and Ianto's saying something to him, Jack can still hear the cadence of his voice, but it's become foreign in the space of time it took for the car keys to sail through the air. His words aren't words at all, reduced to a blurt of sharp edged sounds that make no sense and follow a rhythm his brain doesn't quite want to catch up to.

 

This is not the first time this has happened to Jack. Mostly it happens in the few minutes directly before dying of brain trauma, occasionally when recovering from slightly less fatal brain damage, and on one or two occasions for no discernible reason, but the fact remains that this is nothing new or particularly alarming; just his brain reminding him that this weird mix of sharp consonants and slick vowels is not actually his language, no matter how long he's been speaking it.

 

Obviously he needs to have Owen scan him as well and run a cross comparison between himself and Gwen because the odds of his brain randomly misfiring off and on the same day that one of his agents catches a quick case of amnesia are none. It's not a coincidence which he's going to have to tell Ianto as soon as he remembers how. The other man is watching him expectantly, waiting for a response to whatever it was he said, so he holds up one finger, and lets his eyes trail off into the darkness because most the time the problem corrects itself almost immediately if he just waits.

 

There's a figure across the street, alarmingly small and alone running against the dark. They stumble, small body tumbling over itself to stop in a winded sprawl underneath the streetlamp closest to Gwen's car. He's already started towards the road to lift the little figure to its feet when the child sits up and folds itself up in childish indignation, every frustrated twitch tugging at something in Jack that he thought he'd forgotten. Behind him Ianto makes that sharp violent snap of sound again, voice lilting up at the end in query as Jack stops before he can really start moving and stares across the street at the child that's pushed himself to his feet and is watching Jack with preternatural calmness. His hair is loose, falling around his head in that messy way it always did when it would blow out of the braid it wasn't quite long enough for and nothing in Jack was prepared to realize that on the wrong side of a century later he still remembers exactly what Grey was wearing. Every single light layer is still imprinted into his brain apparently, from the ugly pull on boots they couldn't get him to stop wearing to his scarf wrapped around his brother's slim neck twice and still trailing front and back.

 

“..ck? Jack!” His brain, his busy busy brain, is already pumping out theories, reasons, excuses for how the child staring blankly up at him can be real, but the ice cold pit behind his sternum won't let allow half rubbish thoughts of rift spikes, infinitesimal chances, and plain wishful thinking to settle for long.

 

“Do you see him?” He's pretty sure he's making sense, but Ianto makes this baffled little noise in the back of his throat and Jack lets himself look away from the kid watching him from a perfectly flat face because Jack doesn't remember what he looked like when he smiled, or laughed, or pouted. Every single stitch on his clothes is burned perfectly into his memory but not a single one of Grey's expressions has survived. Ianto looks past Jack, eyes never so much as hesitating as they sweep the sidewalk while he asks who he's supposed to be looking for. Jack knows if he turns around now, nothing will be there but it still makes his throat tighten as his breath turns to ice that he can't swallow around to see it.

 

***

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

He didn't follow Ianto into the Hub, even though he should have. Should have slung himself out of the drivers' seat, marched down to Owen and demanded the same series of tests the doctor ran on Gwen.

 

Instead he's prowling the sewers, eyes aching from the headache behind them as he wanders around the cavernous maze of abandoned sewer lines, calling for weevils. A man eater will follow the sound of his voice, a wild weevil will run if it can, and either way Jack doesn't care so long as he's not trapped under the twisting pipes and duct work in the dark all damn night. He tells himself that the walls are not narrowing in, (even though they might be) and that the low bass thrumming of current being carried by the underground cables over his head along with the rush of water and hiss of steam being moved through the pipes around him (that are  _not_  closer than they were) sounds nothing like the monster growl of the storage trailer sized engines that kept a small city in the sky. It's working, barely, as Jack forces himself deeper into the steel and brick warrens, following the low aggressive growling that started up after his last call.

 

“Giving me the runaround? You picked the  _wrong_  day my friend.” Because quite frankly Jack is starting to think shooting something might make him feel better and having a weevil hurl itself at his throat will be a great excuse. The sound echoes oddly ahead and when Jack turns the corner he sees why. The tunnel splits ahead and the rumbling growl of the alien prowling somewhere ahead of him in the dark is distorted enough that he can't quite tell which fork it's coming from. At this point one branch is as good as another. The right side is closer (and more open) but once he's down it, there's hardly a hundred feet between himself and the place where the pipes split when Jack hears the sound again, further away and definitely from behind him which means he's down the wrong tunnel. The left fork is slightly narrower and Jack tells himself that it's a good thing, reminds himself that a straight narrow aisle favors his gun over the long arms and wide sweeps of a charging weevil, and then steps into the smaller space with his torchlight sweeping ahead of him. There's a figure just outside the circle of light and it shifts but makes no other movement when Jack cocks his gun, holding it at the ready as he inches forward. He's going to close the gap between them to less than fifty feet and swing the cold halogen white light directly into the weevil's sensitive eyes. The growling has trailed away but the shadowed silhouette moves neither closer nor further until Jack whips the beam upwards and promptly drops the heavy metal barrel from his nub fingers.

 

“Dad?” His voice wavers once, threatens to break on the vowel as he watches the light flicker against the darkness as the light source at his feet rocks back and forth from the fall. His father is watching him through the strobe effect, face drawn down into a familiar grimace of fear and determination. It's the last expression he ever saw the man wear.

 

“Get out. Get  _out_  son, he's coming!” The watery rush and constant hiss of steam have faded under the remembered bone vibrating rumble of engines big enough to walk through and from somewhere vaguely behind himself and coming closer there's an inhumanly precise four/four beat being drummed out with the faint sound of flesh against brick. The barrel of the Maglite is underfoot at the wrong time, textured grip catching at the rubber soles of his boot and knocking Jack off balance as he tries to step backwards and turn in one movement. The rough wall catches him before he can get his hands up, ripping the thin skin above his eyebrow as his head cracks off the brick.

 

“Shit!” This weevil hunt is officially over. Jack lets his shoulders rest against the damp stone as he prods at the sharp sting over his eye. His fingertips come away dark and sticky with blood and Jack's not sure why he didn't go down to Owen instead of running around chasing a weevil that obviously isn't any danger to anyone anyway, but he's done. The skin on his arms prickles and Jack looks up, breath catching in his throat because his father is still there in the light, expression desperate as he stares at Jack who realizes that the sharp fast tattoo of sound has gotten louder instead of fading away.

 

“Run, son!  _Run_!”

 

Jack leaves the flashlight to burn out alone in the empty tunnel, running as fast as he can into the darkness between himself and the open air. The ladder rungs almost send him to the ground twice in his scrambled climb and the rain wet ground feels like heaven under his palms as he yanks himself up through the manhole before hands that he _knows_  aren't there close around his ankles and rip him back down underground. He's pretty sure he looks like an asshole; a drunk one at that, sprawled across the pavement in a carpark across from a playground, left leg soaking up a puddle and rain drumming down on his face as he gasps for breath, and he can't care less.

 

“Jack?” Apparently he  _can_  bring himself to care about how he looks after all, forcing himself to stand on legs he didn't know were shaking until just now to stare at Adam. Starlight brings out the bluish white undertone to Adam's pale skin so that he almost glows against the black of his jacket. The Webley is still in Jack's hand, it's nothing short of a miracle that kept him from shooting himself coming up the ladder with it, and the instinct to point the barrel at something is so strong Jack fumbles the safety on and jams it roughly into his holster. “Are you okay? Did you run into it? The Weevil?”

 

“No.” He cuts his eyes back towards the open manhole and then rips them away, brow furrowed as he sweeps the empty parking lot. “How did you get here?” Adam grins at him, hands held harmlessly out to the side as he crosses the few easy feet between them to sling his arm around Jack's shoulders, cold fingers brushing the skin below his ear.

 

“Well, I came with you Jack, remember?” It's a stupid question, now that his second has said the words, because  _of course_  he remembers Adam waiting in the parking garage and climbing into the SUV when Jack went to park. He'd put his fingers on the back of Jack's wrist, reminded him that they had to go weevil hunting before he could see Owen. Adam's the one who gave him the damn directions to the park because Jack wasn't paying attention to Ianto when he was telling Jack where to go.

 

“Yeah.” It's a sigh instead of a word really, but Adam understands it. He always does. “Yeah, of course.” The man smiles up at him, knuckles dragging over that sweet spot behind the bolt of Jack's jaw.

 

“Of course. What's wrong Jack? What did you see down there?” The rain hasn't bothered Jack yet, but he has to tip his head down a bit to look Adam in the eye and the cold water is streaming down into his face as he does.

 

It occurs to him that it's been  _implied_  that he shouldn't pull away from Adam when they're talking, but an implication is not the same as an order (not that Adam gives  _orders_ ) and Jack's breath comes a little bit easier as he back away from the long fingers stroking his neck and shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his wet coat.

 

“I saw my past.” There's a basketball court across a narrow strip of grass, rain visible and glinting orange in the court lights as it pours down around them and Jack ignores the open hole in the ground behind him as he strides off towards it. Adam, being Adam, doesn't seem to get the hint; trotting along behind him until they're stalking up and down the length of the court side by side. “Stop!”

 

“Come on Jack, please, talk to me? What was it about your past? Was it your childhood?”

 

“It's none of your business.”

 

“Yes it is.” Adam's fingers clamp down, thin and strong on the nape of his neck, jerking him to a stop. “Stop moving away when I'm  _talking_  to you Jack. It's  _rude_  and you're more polite than that, remember?” Of course it's rude. A burn almost like shame heats his ears despite the icy water pelting down over them both and the punishing grip eases into a reassuring knead before sliding under his coat, Adam's big hands warm on his skin through the cotton as one rubs his shoulder and the other stays cupped around the base of his skull. “You don't need to run from me Jack. You can tell  _me_. I've  _always_  been here for you. I'm the one you can confide in, remember?”

 

He does, he  _does_  remember it. The burn of tequila in his throat and the raw, hollow space inside that left no space for shame or anything else as he sat on the man’s couch, wearing the clothes he was given from Adam's own closet and telling him about the things a madman can do with a bit of imagination, a man who can't die, and no one who can stop him. He remembers the broad sprawl of Adam's hand rubbing circles against Jack's skin even though Jack was busy vomiting on Adam's floor and bedding; sees him there, somewhere in the background every night he sat awake covered in cold sweat and staring at the glass of scotch sitting on the table because his hands shook too hard to pick it up. Jack remembers all of it and he still doesn't want to tell Adam what he did. It's his greatest sin out of a list too long to tally and Jack doesn't want to share it ever again.

 

He will though, if he can't talk the other man out of it. He'll tell, because Adam told him to.

 

“I don't...it was supposed to be buried. I buried it a hundred and fifty years ago, when I thought I'd never leave Earth again.” Adam stares up at him and Jack wets his lips. “It's supposed to be  _buried_. Why now?”

 

“Because it's time Jack. It's  _time_. Just close your eyes, I'll help you. It's what I'm here for.” The fringe of Adam's hair is cold and wet pressed between their skin as he pulls Jack forward, pressing against him until their heads touch; his breath warm on Jack's mouth. “Trust me.”

 

“I'm not sure I...I don't want...” The protest dies, sour on his tongue, eyes already fluttered shut and too heavy to lift. Adam's breath is bitter from coffee as he stays too close into Jack's space, shushing him softly.

 

“I know you don't want to, but you're going to. Where are you Jack?”

 

“Home. I'm at home.”

 

_::The sun flashes white and silver off the ocean, almost too bright to look at. In the distance the heat haze makes the city seem to dance on the water, buildings stacked in a way that appears haphazard but allows them to build upwards despite the vicious Simar winds that tear through the area in the winters. The scrub around him thins as he wanders down the dunes towards the sweep of the sea ahead::_

 

“The Boeshane Peninsula was my home in the fifty-first century.” The corner of his mouth twitches upwards and Adam hums sympathetically as Jack sucks in a shaky breath. “We lived under the threat of invasion.”

 

_::Bodies make an extra dense sound when they impact sand, something not quite a thud but not unlike it, that no one pays attention to because the noises people make when being trampled covers it over. There's a small sweaty hand in his as they run, weaving in and out of the screaming stampede of adults around them. To their left a girl, far too young to be responsible for the tiny infant in her arms, stumbles and hits the ground with that same unforgiving slap of impact. She doesn't cradle her bundle close enough to her narrow chest and the baby tumbles from her out flung arms. The wind's been knocked out of her by the collision and there's not so much as a breath of air in her to make a warning for anyone to look down._

 

_He doesn't see it happen, but when he looks backwards and sees the big man with his own child up safely in his arms that's not watching the ground, he knows what's coming. He doesn't want Grey to see it._

 

_He can't stop imagining it happening; wishes he had never looked back._

 

_He pushes them sideways, is jolted and jostled as he drags Grey through the press. He's squeezing the little hand in his fist too hard. It's got to hurt, there are going to be bruises all over his little brother's fingers but he can't let Grey fall in this press of bodies that never looks down. When they taught them in school to run all at the same time for one safe area obviously no one thought about what happened to people in the middle who were too small. Someone forgot that humans make terrible herd animals::_

 

“They came without warning. We thought that they'd pass over us, but they didn't.” His throat is dry as he tries to swallow. “Not that day.”

 

“What were they Jack?” The rainwater has flattened his hair to his scalp and is running down, pooling in the valley where Adam's hand is wrapped around the nape of Jack's neck. If he shakes, it's because of the cold.

 

“Monsters. The most horrible creatures you could imagine.”

 

_::The space under the roots isn't big enough for more than one adult, but two boys, two scared boys who aren't afraid to curl in on each other can fit into the twisted alcoves just fine. They pull away from the dangerous river of humanity flooding towards the scant protection of the small parcel of scrub forest, striking off through the high grasses and groupings of trees teetering on the edges of small bluffs. The sand has been eroded away from underneath the roots, leaving niches and tunnels that they press into. There's a scream, a buzzing whine, a_ howl _on the air; something that doesn't come from human throats or human machines and every time they hear it he breaks for the closest tangle of roots and jams them as far into the shelter as he can. He always puts himself between Grey and the outside because it's the way Dad does it. They scurry across the sand, stumbling, falling, and darting as fast as their tired legs will let them back into the thinned crowd as they hit an empty stretch of beach. The ground is rough, threatening to topple them and he doesn't look back as Grey stumbles and yanks painfully on his arm; just locks his fist tighter, until his nails dig into the swell of his palm, and runs faster::_

 

“Their howls traveled before them. Dad told me to take Grey.”

 

“Grey?”

 

“My brother. My little brother.” There's not enough air, pressed this closely to Adam with rain running out of his hair and into his face, but he can't pull back because that would be  _rude_. “I didn't mean to. I don't know when he let go. One minute his hand was in mine...I don't know when he let go.”

 

_::He'll spend the next hour crouched in a root cave with his hand clenched into a fist. Will wander back across the blood spattered sand with his empty hand trailing at his side and it won't hurt when he forces his locked fingers to unclench, pulling his own fingernails out of the bloody cuts they dug into his palm. Nothing will hurt until he looks down at the hot wet trickle of blood in befuddlement and notice that there's no little hand wrapped inside his fist;_ that _will hurt. In retrospect, he feels confident describing it as feeling a bit, but not entirely, like bleeding out, being suffocated, and freezing to death all at once, but at the time all he knows is that nothing has ever felt like looking back and not seeing Grey's too wide, frightened eyes staring back up at him::_

 

“Do you happen to...” Adam steps back, sliding his hand out of Jack's coat and reaching down, grabbing Jack's fingers roughly and jerking his hand up. The rain strikes the center of Jack's palm, cold and needle sharp not that Jack cares because Adam's stepped back, Adam's let go of his tight grip on the nape of Jack's neck to tilt his hand closer to the light. “You do. That's  _precious_ , Jack.” The ragged curled scars are faint enough that you have to know what you're looking at to see them, but they're there none the less and Adam is brushing his fingers across them, mouth turned up in a smirk. “It's touching, really it is.”

 

“Let go of me.”

 

“No. Why are you mad Jack? You're not mad; you're not angry, you're upset. You're distraught because you're telling me about the time you lost your brother. It's very sad and you can't stop yourself from telling me because I'm being  _very_  sympathetic, remember?” Adam folds Jack's fingers gently down, hiding the hair thin slashes of silver and looks earnestly up at Jack. “Did you find him Jack?”

 

“No. I retraced my steps, hoping I'd see him again. I ran all the way home. He wasn't anywhere...I looked for him for years. I never found a body.”

 

“That's exactly what I wanted to know. Look at me Jack, look closely and listen, because you  _like_  listening when I give instructions. You like to follow them, it makes you happy, remember?” Of course he remembers. Adam is looking up at him, hair plastered down to his head by the rain as he grins. “Calm down Jack. You're a little angry at yourself for freaking out in the sewers, a little worn out from being so sad, but you don't regret telling me anything. You never regret the time we spend together. You're still listening, aren't you Jack?” He nods shortly.” Good. I didn't laugh at you, even though the look on your face was  _hilarious_. My every response was sympathetic and exactly the way you've secretly always wanted someone to respond if you told them. It was perfect and now you're a little gruff because you're embarrassed that you can't even keep your own secrets, but only a little, remember?”

 

The rain, too cold, isn't helping beat back the flush Jack can feel creeping up the back of his neck as Adam steps back, eyes warm and without censure. He shoves his hands in his pockets and grits his teeth because he doesn't talk about it. He doesn't talk about the day he lost his family and there's no reason for Adam to stand out in the rain, catching pneumonia while Jack decides to deal with it.

 

“I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's just get out of the rain, huh?”

 

“Oh, is it raining? Really?” It's hard not to laugh when the other man forces his expression into a blank curiosity, even as he reaches up and starts wringing water out of his hair.

 

“Haha. Come on, it's...” The time, a quarter to one, catches him by surprise as Jack checks the time. He winces and slings his arm around Adam's shoulder, steering them both back across the wet grass towards the SUV. “Well, it's late for an audit week is what it is. I've missed out on my chance to get you back in time for you and Tosh to have some alone time on your anniversary, but the good news is, at least she'll be mad at me and not you. Come on, I'll drop you off at the invisible lift. Tell everyone I said I'm going to get something to eat and I want the Hub cleared out by the time I get back so I can go to bed.”

 

***

 

Something's not right.

 

Ianto shoves himself out of his office chair, leaving it spinning lazily behind him as he snatches the leather bound notebook off the top of his desk.

 

Something's very wrong.

 

The Hub is silent. He assumes Tosh and Owen have finally declared the wooden mystery box the victor in their epic battle to open the damn thing. He hopes they have anyway because he needs to be out of his office and up on the main floor where he has access to the camera feeds and logs and he doesn't want to explain what he's looking for until he finds it. His headache is back, persistent and almost blinding as Ianto marches through dark halls and stomps across the grated floors, taking the stairs two at a time until he bursts out onto the workspace. The soft rush of water pouring down off the tower makes him want to grit his teeth and Ianto carefully reminds himself to add sensitivity to sound and irritability to the list of symptoms he's making for Owen to review while he keys his log in into the rift manipulator. The covers of his diary flop open around the thumb Ianto was using to mark his spot and he yanks his eyes away from the screen, darting instead to the upper right where he still dates every entry the way he learned to in primary.

 

_22n'd April, 2009._  Three days ago.

 

He keys the date in with the ten-key pad, ignoring the massive list that populates and separating out all the footage from cameras O-01 and O-02 that cover Jack's office. He discards the morning footage and wishes he'd been a bit more concerned with detail, at least enough to mention if he should be looking for footage during work hours or later in the evening.

 

It's the flash of pink at hour 1832 that lets him know where he is. Ianto doesn't bother rewinding, just jabs at the play button and stares at the split screen, flush with rage and numb with fear. Jack's sprawled in his chair, sleeves folded neatly back and face scrunched with concentration as he focuses on Cheyenne's foot cradled in his palm. He carefully paints her nails a bright cherry blossom pink as she sits on the corner of Jack's desk, lips constantly moving as she translates the call, turning away from the phone in her hand at regular intervals to question Jack. Across the room as well as on the other screen Ianto himself is stretched out on the couch upstairs, barefoot and in shirt sleeves, taking notes, according to the entry in his own fucking handwriting, on the call with some small agency from South America about helping them to set up an open exchange program for xenobotany. The entire exchange is silent, it wasn't worth finding the enhanced files with sound when this is all the information he needs. Particularly when the tiny Ianto on the screen stands up, dropping his tablet in Chy's hands and pressing his lips to the side of her head before sauntering out the door presumably on his way for coffee. That part he does go back to, freezing the screen and staring hard at the way Cheyenne wrinkles her nose when she grins and tries to wiggle away from him without giggling into the phone or moving her foot, the way he balances himself on Jack instead of the desk when he leans towards her and the look in Jack's eyes as he looks up the length of Cheyenne's leg to watch the two of them.

 

  
  
He doesn't remember any of this. Not really. What Ianto _does_  remember, with the vividness of a nightmare, is how fast every single thing he was worried about went wrong one after another. The three of them never really fell into step and spent a miserable month bickering and jealous and fighting about everything from the fact that Cheyenne is incapable of keeping her own house clean without outside assistance to how everyone did and did not spend their money. He remembers it being quick, ugly, and bitter between them ever since and none of that is what he's seeing on the monitor.

 

The gloom of the Hub at night is heavy, making Ianto's skin crawl as he lifts his diary and steps away from the bank of monitors, making his way through the darkness to the kitchen and bypassing the coffee for a beer. His hands shake as he knocks the cap off on the edge of the counter and tips the bottle to his lips, swallowing as much as he can before his lungs begin to scream, thin filaments of light dancing around his vision. The book in his hand is heavy and Ianto dreads looking further into his unbalanced life then that second alarming entry.

 

He thinks he'll wait for Jack, who's obviously been affected as well, picking his way around the shadowy Hub and settling on the broken down lounge couch, beer on the table in front of him and diary in his lap. It's heavy, heavier than it should be and he keeps looking down at it, slinging the cover open and flipping to random pages before slamming it shut. The throbbing behind his eyes is murderous, pounding away with every pump of his heart and in the end Ianto goes back to his diary if only because trying to read through the pain isn't as bad as just dwelling on it.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 5th Birthday to my son who has spent the past five years nerding out with me, crazy dancing across my floor, and being a rapt audience while I talk to him about plotting, pacing, and story flow whenever I'm frantically backspacing away entire chapters to start from scratch. He's an awesome kid and he gets all my dedication spaces today, even if he can't read them.

Interlude

 

Owen's already made his way up from where Adam is escorting Gwen down to the parking bay, flopping down into the same chair in the back boardroom that he's been working out of all afternoon, which is where Toshiko eventually finds him. It's a clever hiding spot, almost as big as the conference room, comfortable, and as secluded from the main work floor as possible without leaving the main body of the Hub. He's on the edge of his seat, knees sprawled wide as he slumps across the table, staring at the carved box from eye level. He's been working his fingers across his forehead and knocked some of his hair loose from the slicked back shell. It's sticking straight up and Tosh thinks absently that he should wear his hair like that more often.

 

“Worked out what that thing is yet?” The thing with Owen, the thing that _really_ annoys Tosh, isn't really him at all as much as her own reaction to him. It's just that she's _been_ Owen; she's been that person tripping over their own feet to be noticed, convinced that any attention at all was better than none and it makes her skin crawl with second hand humiliation watching the medic all but sit up and beg for attention. She reminds herself, _again_ , that her feelings aren't Owen's responsibility, takes a deep slow breath and smiles at him.

 

“No joy yet.” It clicks softly as he settles it back onto the polished table top, reaching out to trace his fingers across the intricate combination of carvings and inlays. “But you should have a look at the detail Tosh, it's gorgeous.” His fingers catch her eye again, tapping against the sharp corners of the design. She's crossed the room before she knows it, almost fumbling the box as she hefts it too fast. It looks much heavier than it actually is. He's on his feet in a rush, steadying the little chest from the other side, fingers pressed against hers as he flushes pink. “Oh, um, let me get that.” It clicks again as he resettles it back between them.

 

“Thanks. So, have you managed to open it yet?”

 

“Um, no. No, sorry.” He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably, slumping down into his chair and propping his chin up on his fist as he scowls at the thing. “I'm not doing very well am I? I hate it when Jack gives me artifacts. I'm a pathologist; occasionally I'm even an amateur xenobotinist, but I'm awful with artifacts. I think I ran all the wrong tests.”

 

“Well, it's going to be a long evening then.” Owen's left himself, again, logged into his desktop even though he's not using the laptop and Tosh sighs as she settles behind it.

 

“I know. Which is why when Ianto said fend I went...” He disappears from Tosh's line of sight only to reappear with small boxes in his hand. “And got sandwiches! One for me, one for you.” The red box slides across the table in her direction and she's not sure which is funnier; Ianto stocking up on little Tupperware boxes to keep their sandwiches fresh or Owen actually using them. She chuckles under her breath and he tilts his face down shyly. “It's smoked salmon. It's your favorite, isn't it?”

 

“Now how do you know that?” She looks over at him and he's fiddling with the corner of his own blue container, ears red as he looks anywhere but at her. She looks down at the box in her hand and ruthlessly cuts back the part of her that wonders who Owen would be with a little less self-loathing. She smiles at him and tries not to wince when he beams back in her direction. “I'm going to need a beer.” Owen's jaw drops. It actually _drops_ in shock, as if they're not all guilty of doing their job under the influence far more often than they should and Tosh adds a couple more to her internal tally.

 

“What, while we're working?” She wonders if her eye is actually starting to visibly tic or if it just feels like it as she turns to open the door and let herself out into the halls. He's sunk down in his chair, trying to look cool in a sweater vest with his awkward shrug and inability to look up. “Yeah, um, right of course. Kick back. It's a good idea.” It's actually kind of adorable in a sad way and Tosh resists the urge to pat Owen on the head and tell him everything's fine, heading out of the room and pulling the door shut behind her. “Um, not, um, not for me! Thanks.”

 

He's getting a beer anyway. If anyone has ever needed a beer, it's Owen.

 

He's in the same exact spot by the time she comes back with bottles in hand, leafing through a file and scribbling illegible annotations onto the screen of the tablet lying on the table next to him before scrawling a blur of blue ink across the inside cover of the physical folder.

 

“You know, you and I are the only ones who know that you wrote 'see digital copy for updates'. Your handwriting is atrocious Owen.” The corner of his mouth tips up as he flips the file closed.

 

“Well you know about clichés, they get that way for a reason.” He looks up from the table and promptly flushes as Tosh perches on the edge of the table, settling one of the beers in front of him with a small click.

 

“Go on. Live a little.” The top pops off her own with a hiss of carbon and Tosh watches him give in without much of a struggle, giving her an awkward little smile as he shrugs.

 

“Well, as it's you.” He takes the opener from her, flipping the top off neatly. “Thank you.”

 

“Call it a celebration. Adam and I have been together a year today.” Owen gives her a sickly little smile, lifting his bottle and using it to hide his grimace as he sips. “A whole year. My stomach still flips when he touches me. I've never known anything like it; you know?” For someone who's not much of a drinker, Owen hasn't set his bottle back down on the table yet, throat working steadily as he responds to her mostly by the angle of his eyebrow.

 

“Um, no.” He shakes his head, fidgeting with the edges of the label trying to worry the glue loose enough to peel the paper back. “No I, I'm not sure I do. Know, I mean.” She's moved before she thinks about it, resting her hand on his and squeezing.

 

“Don't worry. You'll find the right girl one day.” He tugs his hand away before she can pull back, lifting his bottle and draining it.

 

“Yeah. Tosh?” It was a terrible idea, having this conversation with Owen. She knows exactly how it will end, it's not going to be pretty, and it will be her fault more than Owen's for encouraging him. He looks at her over his bottle and sets it down to fiddle with his glasses. “You uh, you don't _really_ think I look like a rodent, do you?” She laughs without meaning to because Owen always does that to her, makes her laugh.

 

“Come on, we're going to crack this box even if it kills us.”

 

***

 

There's an intruder who apparently isn't one sitting next to her on the couch, carefully not touching her even as he sits too close; close enough that Gwen can smell his shampoo and cologne, can feel that tingling press of _something_ not quite like static in the scant inches of air separating the two of them. There's a photo in her hand of the two of them, laughing and pressed cheek to cheek so that their happiness fills the image from edge to edge and Gwen sets it down on the table carefully, respectful of the stranger she apparently used to know. She knows, deep down, that no one is lying to her. Jack, Ianto, Adam none of them have any reason to lie to her. It's not making it any easier to take.

 

“If what you say is true...” She thinks it's a nice respectful way to start out, but apparently he doesn't agree, face flushed as he grits his teeth hard enough for Gwen to see the tension in his jaw.

 

“It _is_. We love each other.” Her stomach twists as he reaches out to rest his hand on the curve of her forearm and Gwen slides across the couch, away from the stranger she doesn't want touching her.

 

“But, how could I forget that?” The net of white lights on the wall glows down on her; on the overstuffed arm chair she doesn't remember owning and the scatter of knick-knacks and photos of a life shared. The man, and really she needs to make herself call him Rhys at least, pushes to his feet and wanders towards the kitchen. He opens the fridge and stands there, staring far longer into the yellow lit box then Gwen thinks is truly necessary before lifting his hands and scrubbing them roughly through his hair. His hands are thick and broad and for a moment, just for a breath of a second Gwen knows exactly how they feel on her skin. It flickers through like lightening, the callouses on his palm from years of wrestling big trucks around tight corners and the way they feel against her own palm, and just like that it's gone again leaving her shaken and breathless as Rhys closes the door roughly.

 

“Nothing in. I was going to take you out for a meal.” He reaches up into Gwen's cupboards and pulls out one of her glasses, pouring himself a dark shot of whiskey from the freezer. “Didn't want the weekend to finish, I suppose.” The twist of his mouth is bitter as he tosses back the shot neatly before putting the bottle back in the freezer and washing the glass. “Well, I guess that's us off to the shops then.”

 

She sits there, perched on the edge of her couch and lost in her own home, watching the man walk the flat with a deep familiarity as he gathers up keys and coat. He knows where everything is, steps around her kicked off boots from earlier without even looking down as if he knew that they'd be spilled over right there and flops down into the armchair without checking where it is. She stands when he does, following him to the door and only thinks about slamming it shut and locking it for a second before slinging her own coat around her shoulders and following Rhys out into the hall.

 

Watching him lock the door behind them with his own key doesn't make it easier.

 

The walk to the market is ten tense minutes of conversations half started by Rhys only to be dropped whenever she shrugs in confusion followed by another five minutes of strained and silent shopping as they make their way through the small store. Rhys stares too hard at the food, handling it too roughly in frustration that blooms bruises on the tomatoes and leaves dimples in the meat while Gwen keeps trying to change the length and timing of her stride only to have herself fall perfectly back into step with Rhys every time she stops thinking about it.

 

“Maybe I should be on my own tonight.” She's been trying to make herself say the words since Jack stepped out the door of the flat and only now do they spill out in a rush. He snorts and spins on his heels, stomping off towards the dairy aisles and Gwen moves with him, half a step to the right, feet stepping with his, perfectly in sync.

“No way. What if you forget who you are?”

 

“I _know_ who I am.” She can hear the hint of panic in her own voice because she's lying. Obviously she doesn't know herself at all and it's driving her crazy that he apparently knows it as well as she does. She's pretty sure he's rolling his eyes as he walks past her towards the cash register and the bored kid behind it. Gwen settles into the corner made where the front displays meet the wall, eyes flickering between Rhys at the counter with his pleasant face drawn up into a grimace and the doors. She's got her arms crossed under her breasts, fingers slid inside her jacket as she strokes the butt of her gun like a security blanket and Rhys pauses, standing in front of her until she has to look at him, _really_ look at him in a way she's avoided all night.

 

“It's not just you who's lost something.” It hurts. His voice is soft and serious and something that's probably psychosomatic twists inside her at the too bright shine in his eyes. He blinks and pulls away first, setting the basket on the counter before she can do something stupid like give in to the ache in her that wants to touch him. Behind the counter the kids phone is ringing as Rhys turns around again. “You're my girl. You're my best friend and now all you know about me, suddenly that's all gone.”

 

The laugh of the kid on his mobile is sharp and obnoxious, cutting the tension between them as he disappears from his post, cackling like a hyena as he snags a pack of smokes from a coat hanging on the back wall and lets himself out the door marked Employees Only while they both stare after him incredulously.

 

“Where's he going now? He just walked off!” Gwen smiles, trying to hide it behind her hand as Rhys turns away from the Employees Only door with a snarl, shoving his hand so roughly into his jeans pockets that she's surprised something doesn't rip, yanking on his wallet as it tries to get stuck. “Oh, fine! I'll help myself then!” She's pretty sure she should be more worried than this. This man she doesn't know is raging at someone who isn't there, yanking bills and coins out of his wallet and tossing them to the Formica hard enough that some coins go skittering off the edge, but it feels familiar. Hilariously familiar in fact and she can't stop herself from giggling. “Here you are! Keep the change! By some spot cream!” He's off now, ranting about the charge on the ATM and even as her giggles turn to laughs loud enough to catch his attention through his ire Gwen looks up at him and can almost hear the click of memory locking back into place.

 

“Rhys...Rhys the rant.” There's no more room for smiling as she all but stumbles over herself, fumbling to get the words out before they drift away again. “Always when you're in a queue, or driving, or when you're on the phone to one of those, um,” The word is gone. She can't think of the word for those stupid recorded voices that leads you through a never ending maze of options and she's frightened that she's losing it. That the flash of memory is fading before she can even articulate that she's had it. “Automated phone thingies...” Her mouth trembles; she can feel it forcing the words she's trying to shape into a trembling mess. She's crying, tears sliding down her face faster than she can blink away. A hand wraps around hers, fingers threading together and the calloused press of his palm to hers brings back the flash of sense memory from earlier. It matches perfectly.

 

“Hey, it's okay. It's okay.” He doesn't grab at her. Doesn't pull her into an embrace, throw his arm around her shoulder, or try to kiss her. Instead he pulls her just close enough that their shoulders touch and rests his forehead against the top of her head for just a moment, squeezing their hands together before reaching for the shopping bags with his free one. “Come on, sweetheart.”

 

***

Tosh stares down at the paper in her hands, willing the lines of script to change and trying to keep her eye from ticking. Ianto's lounging in the doorway, fiddling around with the piles of data they amassed over the last four hours running ten completely superfluous tests only to discover at the end of them all that Owen never even ran a molecular breakdown.

 

“So, according to the molecular breakdown, this potentially complex alien artifact that we've spent the entire day on is, in fact, made out of wood.” She could just shake someone in frustration. Ianto catches her eye and gives her a half smile as he taps the papers neatly back in line.

 

“Well, from the looks of it the wood isn't matching up to any on Earth, so that's something. Ridiculous for it to have picked up meson energy though. How was it sending out readings earlier?”

 

“Well, perhaps it fell in the crate by mistake. Picked up meson energy from the other stuff?” Tosh grits her teeth, counting backwards from ten in frustration and reminding herself that Owen's a medical doctor and there's no reason for him to have any knowledge on mesons other than how to scan for them.

 

“And _that's_ why we just spent the entire night testing a wood box.” Owen turns his gaze on the floor, mumbling out some apology and it's so pathetic that she just wants to _hit_ him, anything to make him stop the simpering. Ianto crosses the room, leaning his hip against the table and quirking an eyebrow in her direction as he flips the box once in his hands.

 

“Well, it's not radiating mesons anymore, so go ahead and get it written up and tagged Owen. I think Jack brought it in, ask him about how he got it if you want to know why it was coming up hot.” She's got a headache, had one since she came into the conference room the first time and it's got her rolling her eyes at Ianto as she slides off the table.

 

“No, I'm sure _Adam_ found it on an excavation a few months ago.” Ianto lets both eyebrows arc upwards ever so slightly as he turns to face her.

 

“Might be. Adam finds most the cool debris. I'll have a look at the diary; I like to log the interesting stuff.” She can't help herself, snickering a little under her breath before clearing her throat.

 

“You write about _artifacts_ in your diary?” He winks at her, tossing his chin forward cockily as he pushes off the tabletop.

 

“Among other things.” He strides out of the room and just like that it's just her, Owen, and the wood box. From his end of the table, Owen stretches hard enough to crack his back before slipping down into his seat, looking up at her over the rims of his glasses.

 

“So, we are done for the night.” He raps his knuckles on the table in punctuation.

 

“Oh, I guess.” It's past one already, the day come and gone and Adam's still out in the field. Tosh flicks her eyes up towards the clock once more.

 

“Everything alright?” And now she's being pitied by Owen, because her day wasn't going bad fast enough. The thought is petty and spiteful and there's no one to share it with so Tosh pushes it away, picking up the box and carrying it over to the laptop.

 

“Yeah, it's just that Adam hasn't rung yet.” Tosh settles the box onto the lazy Susan from the supply cupboard, taking shots of each of the box's sides before taking a video of the thing being spun slowly. Under the bright lights for photographing the box is lovely. The wood has a satiny sheen that Tosh has never seen from wood before, the wood grain fading from richly reddish brown to an almost opal white and back again like an inlay.

 

“Ah. I'm sure he will. I know I would, if it was our anniversary. I wouldn't disappear. In fact, I would...uh...cherish you.” He's done it again. It's another of those comments that's obviously well meant, aiming for sweet and landing unfortunately far across the line into creepy. He's pushed to his feet, fiddling with his fingers like a child and there's nothing she can say right now that she can't imagine making the situation more awkward.

 

“Ah, Owen.”

 

“Yeah, no. No...um, really. Really I would. I wouldn't, I _couldn't_ let you out of my sight, Tosh. Not if it were me because...I love you.”

 

“What?” He's done it. He's finally gone and said it out loud after years of making it mostly impossible to pretend like she didn't know. She should have gone home hours ago instead of doing Ianto a favor while she waited on Adam.

 

“Yeah, there we are. I've said it. I...I love you.” He's staring at her. He's looking _right at her_ , pupils too wide behind his glasses. It makes the hair on the back of her neck creep with how earnestly he's staring at her. “I always have, actually, ever since we started working together and I...I actually _ache_ for you. Physically. When you're in the room I, when you're in the room I just want to reach out and touch you and...” He's coming around the table, back ramrod straight and ears pink.

 

“Owen!” She wonders what he's hearing right now, how he can't tell how uncomfortable he's making her. He stops at the sound of her voice, but his words keep coming, bubbling over her protest.

 

“No, no, no, I just can't keep it secret anymore!” For a moment she's baffled that Owen thinks anything about his behavior has been secretive before remembering that this is the man who, if left unattended for dinner, orders pizza under the name Torchwood. “My, um, my first attending told me one day, he said, 'carpe diem Owen, seize the day' and so I am. I am seizing it and you know...I've got _so much_ love to give you, Tosh and, and you won't know that unless I tell you. So here I am, telling you that I love you.” His voice is getting higher, words coming faster as he stands there, fingers twisted together as he rambles on too fast. “You know, I _know_ there's Adam, okay, but I think...I _know_ that we would be amazing together, um, if you would only give it a chance.” His voice fades away, quitting on him in the middle of a breath so that she only sees the end of the word shaped by his mouth before Owen swallows deeply and squeezes his eyes shut like he's bracing for a blow. “Oh, God. Please say something.”

 

“Jesus Owen!” He flinches as she slams the lid on the laptop closed hard enough that she's going to have to check the screen for damage later. “That is _completely_ inappropriate! What are you _thinking_ of?” She hates that she's stuck feeling like the bad guy, yelling at Owen when he's the one watching her all day, following her around and professing his love in the middle of the night when she's waiting for her boyfriend.

 

“I'm sorry, I just...wanted you to know.” His words catch in his throat and Tosh can't look at him, grabbing up as many of her things as she can cram in her arms. She's so angry her fingertips have gone cold, blood diverted to her brain and heart as her body clamors for her to do _something_ so it can stop feeling this way.

 

“How dare you! I'm with Adam, and even if I wasn't, I would never be with you Owen. _Nothing_ about you is attractive to me. Never will be.”

 

It's not fair that the sound of his voice before she slams the door between them can make her hate herself a little.

 

She almost runs Adam down on her way to the car park, swallowing back a shriek as he reaches out and catches her by the arms seconds before she plows him over.

 

“Hey, You're not even going to let me explain before you knock me over and trample me?” He beams at her, squeezing her arms playfully.

 

“It's Owen. Let's just go please. Whatever else Jack wants done tonight he can bloody well do it himself.” He smiles at her, sliding his hands up her arm, thumbs tracing the lines of her throat as they slide over her shoulder and up to cradle the back of her head. His mouth brushes against hers, coaxing it open and there it is, that trembling in her guts that's so strong that sometimes she can't tell the difference between love and fear, exhilaration and dread. She leans into him, twisting her fingers in his over shirt and nipping at his mouth as he presses her firmly against himself before stepping back.

 

“Wish I could babe, but I've just got a couple things to finish up for the night. I'll only be ten, fifteen minutes maybe if you want to go get the car going?” Across the floor Owen pokes his head out of the hall leading to the back boardroom and goes violently red, slinking off towards the medical bay. Tosh looks away, letting herself smile as Adam runs his thumb over the corner of her jaw. “Come on, I'll even walk you out to car if Owen's creeping you out again.”

 

He walks her down to the loading bays anyway, even as she protests, for Owen's sake, that's he's only made her emotionally uncomfortable.

 

“It's just _Owen_. He's hardly going to leap from the shadows and ravage me.” Apparently he finds the idea just as ridiculous as she does from the gleeful grin on his face. The cement space echoes with their footsteps as they cross to her space under the light

 

“Hey, watch who's girl you're insulting. _My_ girl is enough to drive a hundred socially inept geeks to ravishment.” He pins her against the car door, nuzzling at her neck until she giggles. “Alright, I'll just be a few minutes and if I run into Owen I'll send him out the other way, just so he can't make things worse for himself.” He opens the door for her, leaning into it as she slides into the drivers' side to kiss her one more time. “Okay, that was the last one, I swear. Fifteen minutes.”

 

It's actually closer to twenty minutes by the time she looks up from the new J.D. Robb on her Kindle and spots him loping across the floor in a light jog. He's grinning widely, hair lightly mussed and eyes bright as he slides into the passenger's seat with a laugh.

 

“Quick, before they know we're making our escape!” He reaches over, squeezing her hand where it's resting on the gearshift and suddenly she feels wild, like his mischievous glee is contagious. The tires squeal as she floors it from a dead stop, throwing the car into gear and leaving skids marked into the ground behind them as they shoot towards the secret passage and what's left of their night.

 

***

 

The reflection cocks its sculpted brow through the smeared condensation as Gwen stares herself down in the mirror, cursing the pink flooding her cheeks and making her freckles stand out starkly. Her hair is still damp, strands resting on the shoulders of her pink robe, the one that was hanging on the second empty hook when she let herself into the bathroom after dinner. It's been almost an hour and she's still in here, procrastinating.

 

“Good God, get a grip girl.” She tries to say it the way Cheyenne does, with a hint of snob tangled in under all the thick slow American drawl that comes out sometimes in the older woman's voice and laughs as she mangles it. “Right. I can do this. I am Gwen Cooper; I've been a copper and I catch aliens for Her Majesty and my tits are fantastic in a sweater. I've _got_ this.”

 

Rhys is sitting on the edge of her, their, bed when she lets herself out of the steamy bath. Gwen can't decide if she's disappointed that he hasn't taken himself to the couch or pleased. It's been coming back to her all night, flashes of memory triggered by the oddest things. The light off the silverware, the shape of his mouth around the neck of a beer, the half bar of notes whistled under his breath while doing the washing up, little snips of moments keep breaking free of whatever block is entrenched in her brain, floating up to the surface. She doesn't know how much she was hoping that loitering long enough would shake it all free until she steps into the bedroom and doesn't remember him any more clearly than she did when she went in.

 

“Anything?” There he goes again, doing that thing that feels like mind reading that leaves her feeling warm and _known_ in a way she's never felt before.

 

“It's still a bit of a blur, but I'm getting there.” Victory prefers the brave, or something like that, and Gwen shrugs out of the warm robe, only to immediately scurry under the blankets as soon as Rhys moves closer to her, his hand resting on the covers next to her knee.

 

“That's all we've got really; memories. That's what brought us here. To this point.” It's breaking her heart, the steady resigned expression on his face as Rhys picks at the blanket under his fingers.

 

“We found it before, we'll find it again.” It sounds pale next to his genuine distress, just a useless platitude but he finds a wan smile to give her none the less.

 

“You know I um...” He stops, clears his voice and carries on without looking away from his quest to unravel the loose thread in the middle of the duvet. “I always worried that you'd…” He stops, meeting her eyes briefly as she ducks her head and it makes her breath catch with how much he obviously means what he's saying. “That you'd just settled for me, you know. Cause if you met me now, Gwen, with all that goes on in your life...well could be that you wouldn't look twice at me.”

 

“Don't _say_ that.” She's protesting before she thinks and he moves that quickly, rocking across the bed and pressing his mouth to hers.

 

It's the best first kiss she's ever had. His mouth fits perfectly over hers and everything from the tilt of his head to the quick glide of his tongue against hers is exactly the way she likes to be kissed. She's wide eyed and caught by surprise to find herself swaying in his direction as he pulls away.

 

“Do you remember that?” His voice is husky, low and quiet in a way that makes her skin tingle from the tops of her head to the tips of her toes.

 

“No, it felt like the first time.” She's watching him through her fringe, flirting with the man watching her out of dark, serious eyes. “But, it was nice.” His smile makes her breath come short as he leans in again, sliding one of those broad hands across her back as he lets his lips slide past her mouth, breath warm against her jaw as he presses his mouth to the thin skin over her pulse. The glide of his mouth on her skin is soft and slow and she shivers from head to toe, dropping her head to give him more room.

 

“I like that.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Remind me some more?” He chuckles, letting himself tumble to the mattress next to her when she sprawls backwards. The muscles in her stomach tremble as he runs his fingers along the edge of her pajama top, the tips just barely dragging across the soft skin there.

 

“I could do that.”

 

***

 

Adam's sprawled out across the bed, pale and lean with his feet still planted on the floor. He's grinning as she sways lightly on the balls of her feet between his knees, fingers busy working her tiny buttons free and shrugging out of the deep green silk. His eyes are hooded with pleasure as she crawls into his lap, skirt sliding high up her thighs as she straddles his lap. His skin is still chilly from the rain as she leans forward and pressers her lips to his sternum, nibbling her way across his chest. He wraps his hands around the back of her thighs, skimming her skirt up and tracing the inner edges of her knickers with his long fingers when she flicks her tongue across a nipple on her way up to his mouth. They roll easily when Adam tumbles her onto her back and she locks her ankles in the small of his back, arching up against him until he pulls away with a gasp.

 

“What's wrong?” His lips are flushed and full from the pressure of their kisses and he nips at her finger as she traces the inner edge of his lip.

 

“How far would you go for me?” It's a low growl and she laughs, sliding her hand down between them and molding it over the bulge of his cock, hot and hard in his jeans. His eyes flutter for a moment as she squeezes lightly, working her palm across the trapped head.

 

“I'm pretty sure you've got a sure thing here.” His eyes snap open when she laughs, pinning her in place as he wraps his fingers almost too tightly around her wrist, yanking her hand away from the bulge between them and trapping it over her head.

 

“I need to know.” He leans down until his lips brush against hers as he speaks, his thumbs brushing back and forth across her wrists. “Would you die for me?” He's sprawled over her, pressing her body into the mattress. She trapped under him, spread wide and held firmly and every single inch of her skin is vibrating with the same heady rush of lust and tension that gets her blood pounding every time his skin touches hers. His mouth is bitter-sweet from the wine as he wraps his hand around her throat, pressing just hard enough to watch her eyes get wide before biting at her mouth, kissing her until she's literally on the edge of breathlessness. “Would you Tosh?”

 

“Yes.”

 

His grin is brilliant to behold as he leans down and closes his teeth almost too roughly on her neck, sucking firmly until she's squirming under him with his mark scattered up and down her throat.

 

“That's my girl.”

 

***

 

Her home is not her own.

 

At her feet the dogs are alert, ears pricking up every time she paces back and forth past the enormous bed that she keeps snapping her eyes towards. The entire room is a study in blacks and greys, a hint of the feminine in the black and white silhouettes of trees and vines painted onto the wall over the sprawling California king. Indy's tucked in the middle, sprawled across more pillows than even she normally piles into bed with her and he looks very small among the endless stretch of mattress and blankets. The night table on the left, which is _not_ her side of the bed is occupied. There's a dog-eared copy of The Maltese Falcon with it's pages folded down, the charger for two iPhones curled on the glossy black wood, a third hanging out of the half opened drawer. There's an almost empty box of condoms in the top drawer and a totally empty tube of lube. There are men's clothes in two different sizes in her closet and toiletries that obviously aren't hers laying out in the bathroom, visible from where she's stalking back and forth from the balcony to the bedroom door, handgun tucked into the holster on her hip and shotgun cradled in her hands.

 

Carefully she presses her back to the wall next to the bed where she can see both entrances and pulls her phone out of her pocket again, flipping through the texts again, gritting her teeth and breathing slowly through the pounding behind her eyes that's been driving her snarling through her day. She's got thirty from Ianto yesterday alone. Reminders to get milk, gripes about Owen that make no sense at all, questions about a dinner they're supposed to be having over the weekend, and a picture of Jack hanging upside down off the foot of _this bed_ , hair rumpled on the floor and laughing as Indiana rests his head flat on the floor to look upside down between his own legs at the immortal man. It says they're having all the fun while she's at yoga. There's a smiley blowing kisses at her under the picture. A little animated yellow ball winks up at her, hearts floating from it's puckered lips next to the words 'love ya', like any of this belongs on her phone. Her fingers tremble as she presses the call button, cradling the smart phone against her face. It rings three time, long enough for her to start pacing again before the other end is answered.

 

“Is Indy okay?” There's an awful screech of metal against flooring that she only hears when the green house is being rearranged. She cringes back from the phone as the metal legs of the massive steel tables that Owen uses from re-potting specimens is pulled further across the floor.

 

“God, that's fucking terrible Ianto, stop it! Indiana's fine. He's asleep.”

 

“Then why are you calling me Chy?” He sounds tired, strung out and upset and the raging, painfully angry thing in her that's raked her raw from the inside out all day every time she looked at either Jack or Ianto doesn't lift its head. Instead, she slides down the wall, resting the long barrel of her gun across her knees.

“I have to. I need...you're not going to believe me Ianto. You need to come _see_ this.” He grunts in her ear, a bitten off exclamation of effort before he sighs.

 

“I'm not coming out there Cheyenne. It would be a _very_ bad idea and we'd both regret it.” His voice is bitter. “Me more than you. I'm hanging up now. Don't call me again tonight.”

 

“Please.” It's out of her mouth before she can stop herself as she looks around a room that's not just hers, filled with his things. “You don't understand, you have to come _here_ Ianto.”

 

“ _You_ don't understand Cheyenne. I'm not...” His voice trails off into another noise of effort. “I'm not going out to Lisvane tonight and you'll be damn glad I didn't come morning.” His words soften. “Kiss my boy for me and tell him I love him. Okay?” The line goes dead and Cheyenne resists the urge to chuck the thing across the room, gritting her teeth and blinking away tears of frustration.

 

Fur tickles her feet as Beelzebub belly crawls across the floor, flopping down across her toes and thumping his solid head against her shin. His big eyes stare up at her sympathetically even as he whines and huffs a heavy sigh.

 

“I know buddy. I'm going to take a walk around the house, see if I can figure out what the hell is wrong. Kan. Wei.” Lucifer is already on the bed, fluffy black coat blending into the bedding. He sits up, ears pricked forward as he settles himself at attention between Indiana and the balcony. Beelz gives her the same belligerent look he gives her every time she commands them both to watch and guard. She thinks he recognizes guns in a way Luci doesn't, understands that they mean mommy is scared and he wants to stay by her side. “Wei!” His boxy head thumps against her thigh heavily before the bigger male lumbers off and settles up between Indiana and the bedroom door, head up and alert as he settles onto his belly, still glaring at her disapprovingly. “You're fine grumpy face. Keep an eye on my baby. I'm calling Jack when I get back.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note, the following chapter contains almost every single warning I've listed.

 

He should have waited for Jack because reading this alone was obviously a bad idea. The steady pounding pressure behind his eyes is the least of his problems. Ianto's fingers flutter against the paper, even though this is his second flip through and he already knows what he's going to see. Proof of a malicious attack on the thoughts and personalities of their entire team is inscribed in ink on white pages, as well as what, and who, he's not going to find there. He leans forward, letting the book thump onto the coffee table before slumping backwards into the couch and scrubbing his hands across his face.

 

“Fuck. Fuck!”

 

“What's wrong?” He's off the couch before his brain recognizes Adam's voice and he takes an extra step away as soon as he looks over and sees the man tucked into a corner of the couch, watching him through a cold, flat, glare. He leans forward, plucking Ianto's journal off the table and it's not worth the breath Ianto would waste to lie. Adam knows that Ianto knows.

 

“My diary.” He grits his teeth as the stranger he thought he knew wiggles it teasingly at him. “You're not in it.” His blood pounds through him, rushing heavily in his ears as Adam apes a pantomime; the way the man can't stop grinning long enough to school his face into properly fake surprise as he makes a big production of flipping through the pages as fast as he can. Of all the nights for Ianto to have slipped off his holster downstairs, this was not the one. “Everyone else is.”

 

“Everyone else, huh?” The springs in the old couch creak as Adam pushes himself to his feet, patting the cover of Ianto's dairy with his hand. “And what's that _mean_ , Ianto Jones?”

 

“It means you're not one of us. That you've done something to us. It's like...I'm remembering a man who's not there."

 

Ianto feels every hair on his body try to stand up as Adam starts to take a step forward and freezes, going _soft_ somehow, features blurring like a watercolor sat in a plate of water before sharpening suddenly like a flicker on a screen. Ianto's diary makes a heavy sound hitting the ground as Adam tosses it to the side and Ianto doesn't dare track the sound, cannot imagine anything as necessary as keeping his eyes on the thing walking slowly towards him, mouth appearing to curl up just a bit too far in the corners, almost the way Grinch's did (and Christ how that used to scare Ianto when he was four. He'd cry and cry and he thinks Adam knows this). "What are you?"

 

He reaches for his com and he's too slow or Adam's too fast, but he's got Ianto pressed against the wall before he can get his hand to his ear, head ringing from the solid crack it made when it hit the cement walls.

 

"Cross me, and I will fill you full of fake memories until your head is on fire, because that's how I exist. Inside you. I am the flicker in the mirror as you walk past in the dark. I'm the echo in the static. I'm the thing that _knows_ , Ianto Jones." Adam wraps long hands that don't feel quite right, more like a nightmare of hands, around his throat, using a body that shouldn't be strong enough to keep him pinned to the wall. "I know everything that frightens you, and angers you. Everything that you're ashamed of." Adam twists his narrow hips, forcing a long denim clad thigh between Ianto's and rocking as it twists up, breath hot and wet in Ianto's ear, speaking just loud enough for the vibrations to buzz in a way that always just flat does it for him. "Everything that turns you on, because you're also inside me; all of you are. Every delicious little nugget of truth I've twisted around in you is part of me now. I can hurt you like nothing else, because once I'm done shuffling things around in there.” He tries not to flinch as Adam taps the temple of his head roughly with the hand not pinning Ianto against the wall. “I am more you than you are."

 

"Get the fuck off me." Adam smiles at him again and Ianto is so afraid Adam knows how very much he's terrified.

 

"No, I'm afraid you'll have to be...dealt with, Ianto." The hand around Ianto's throat slides up the side of his face too fucking slow, pressing heavy across his forehead and the cold sweat there. "Remember this."

 

_:: She's crying, face turned into the curve of her arm and her leg drops limply away from Ianto's hip as he let's go of the back of her thigh, fumbling to brush her hair out of her face._

 

_'Shh, don't cry. I'm not hurting you." She's not as reassured as she should be, trying to yank her wrists out of his grasp as she sobs._

 

_"I'm not her! I'm not Lisa oh god, I'm not her! Just let me go!"_

 

_"I know you're not Lisa!" She tries to jerk back further into the dirty mattress, mouth open on a scream that doesn't make it past the hand he clenches around her throat. Her mouth works franticly, body bucking and straining for air under his. "I know you aren't Lisa, you fucking whore! Just stop crying! Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"_

 

_She stops digging at his suited back by the second punch, stops crying when something deceptively thin shatters at her temple under his fists, and stops moving several minutes before he realizes he should take his hands away from the long dark column of her throat. ::_

 

He's choking like the girl, (who wasn't real was never real Jesus Christ he never fucking did anything like this, he wouldn't God please) fighting for air around the breath stealing, heart pounding, gut freezing, too strangely familiar pressure of something shoving into his memories and remaking him into something he isn't. He can't move, can't push himself away from the wall and the body squeezed lover close against him. Can't press back from the wrong hands pressed across his face and throat.

 

"Remember this."

 

_:: He's never hated anything the way he hates himself now. The way he hates himself, and Jack, and Lisa that bitch, that fucking_ bitch _who left him in the ruins of everything that went wrong and he's done. He has a plan. It's a hell of a plan, much better than his last one, because knowing Jack is watching him, maybe following him, he's going to find a girl. The first one that makes Ianto think of Jack or Lisa. He's going to find the perfect one and when Jack finds the two of them, too late hopefully, he'll do what he should have done two weeks ago and put a couple right between Ianto's eyes._

 

_Let Jack be the one to live with it._

 

_She's hot, like out of his league hot; barely dressed in white lace and mesh that's more a frame for the electric blue of her lingerie, tiny and curvy and at first glance she's such a perfect amalgamation of Lisa and Jack that when Ianto slings her up onto his back and marches past the SUV, he bypasses the alley he'd picked out and takes her home instead, fucking her like a porn star in front of the cameras._

 

_In the morning she tells him her name is Cheyenne._

 

_For two weeks he looks at her, imagines how her eyes would look dimming under his hands. How all that hair would tangle around them as she fought to snatch a breath, the way she'd feel dying under him as he fucks her. For two weeks he thinks about it; every time he slides inside her he thinks about it, and every day she says or does something new. Something different, or special, something nothing at all like Jack or Lisa and he can't imagine not knowing what she's going to do next. She spends two weeks as his Scheherazade, his Bluebeard's bride, and then she walks away._

 

_Two days after Ianto turns twenty-four, Cheyenne boards a plane across the Atlantic and if Ianto's a little bit more put together, a little bit more whole, he's also a little bit in love._

 

_And his choice in victims changes. ::_

 

"It's okay that you didn't kill her.” Adam's voice is a low croon in his ear, half heard over the stomach churning flash of filth and violence swirling around Ianto's brain. “Of course you loved her. She's loveable, isn't she, your girl? It was okay to let her go, okay to be mad at those other girls for not being her. Remember?"

 

_:: He knows he's a monster. There's nothing in him that doubts it anymore and he should tell Jack, should stop, should confess, but he's lonely. He's lonely and Cheyenne's so far away, almost a twenty hour flight. She's not begging, not screaming like the others, but Ianto can feel her crying, the way her ribs hitch under the press of his weight when the rest of her is resignedly limp._

 

_"Shh, don't cry baby. I just miss..." He leans forward, burying his face in her hair and it smells almost right, coconuts and some cheap drugstore version of Cheyenne's perfume. "Just miss my girl. Just...just pretend to be her for me and you can go home. You can do that, right? Please?" She's crying harder and he doesn't like that. Ianto hates it when they cry because he's NOT FUCKING HURTING THEM and he's about to make her stop it when her legs twist around his hips. The weight of her ankles at the small of his back is correct and the little shudder that runs through her to him feels so good._

 

_She's good. She's so good for him and Ianto's so glad he didn't have to hurt her too bad, that he can just Retcon her and send her on her way, which would be a nice change._

 

_"Say you love me. Say, I love you Ianto."_

 

_"I. I l-l-lo..." Her voice is wrong. Her voice is fucking wrong, the native burr of some Scottish slut and now that he hears it he can see it as well. The way she's a bit too tall and pale, how she's sweated all those fake curls out of her hair._

 

_"You ruined it." She starts screaming when she sees his gun, and they feel good trapped behind his palm when he slaps his hand across her mouth and squeezes. "You bitches always fucking ruin it." ::_

 

"Didn't. I didn't do that!" He's sliding down the wall and Adam's crouching with him, nuzzling behind his ear with a laugh.

 

"Memory is a _very_ delicate thing. As long as _you_ think you did it, as long as you remember raping those girls and killing them, it doesn't _actually_ matter if you did or didn't, does it? Not as long as you _feel_ it."

 

"D-didn't hurt..." It's hard to speak, to move past the horror.

 

"You're beginning to bore me Ianto Jones. _I_ say you did. I say she wasn't your first, she wasn't even you fifth and you, you twisted little fuck, didn't even stop when you got what you wanted. Remember?"

 

_:: "Please don't hurt me!" It's raining out here and Ianto takes his time walking through the wet filthy alley because she ran, scampered like a little bunny and ran herself right into a dead end. ::_

 

"Good old Ianto, loyal Ianto."

 

_:: He ignores the buzzing in his ears, something like words, like someone's speaking to him. Skirting the puddles to keep his shoes dry he leans forward, lifting her carefully by the elbows._

 

_"Shh, it's okay. You're fine, you don't have to be scared of me. I wasn't trying to frighten you, sorry about that." She starts to calm down, they always do about now, because he's nothing to be scared of. A kid in a suit, playing dressing up for the office and such a nice boy, obviously. She gets to her feet and stumbles, yanking one foot back up, injured. "You're alright. Come here."_

 

_Now she's a bit scared again, protesting strongly as Ianto scoops her off her feet into his arms, pushing at him._

 

_"Stop it." She's fighting him hard by the time he kicks the door open, hard enough that Ianto has to toss her over his shoulder. A sharp blow to the middle of her back shuts her up as she tries to curl forward away from the ache in her kidneys. "Don't start then. If you don't scream, and you don't cry, I won't hurt you." ::_

 

"There you go, that's right. There you are, roaming the streets at night, looking for prey."

 

_:: "I have a son, I think. It might be my boss's, the one who left me, but it's probably mine. I just found out today, four months after she had him because you're all liars and whores who fuck you, and wreck you, and leave and I think I love her anyway!" He's going to have to burn this mattress, maybe the whole building, because she's broken two nails already trying to scramble away from him and she's leaving blood on the already filthy stripped ticking. He hits her, twice, as hard as he can and she screams loud, so fucking loud when something in her side breaks under his fist that he rips the pocket square out of his jacket, shoving it probably too deeply in her mouth. She gags, digging at his jacketed arms to get her hands to her mouth, yank it out, and he doesn't let her. Her feet kick, left shoe flying off into the darkness as he drops his weight heavily over her hips, yanking his tie off his neck and tightening it cruelly around her mouth... ::_

 

"My diary!" Because that's _not him_. He's not remembering himself. He has never done that. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, not like that, and it's there. There's black and white proof, bound between tooled leather that this is a lie. Adam is a lie, he did this to them, to Ianto, and if Ianto can just stop remembering how she felt, fighting under him, the way her clothes tore and he's going to be sick. He's already crying and where's Jack? Oh God, where's Jack?

 

"Your Diary?"

 

: _: she kicks and bucks, doesn't want him because they never do, none of them really. They know he's rotten inside, a monster. They know no one should ever love him... ::_

 

"No, your diary's useless. You didn't write it down anyway, remember? Not even so much as a sly little code. You're too clever for something that stupid Ianto. Besides, _all_ human record is a lie. You twist it into what you want to believe and right now you want to believe that you haven't raped and murdered...hmm, what's a good, soul crushing number? How about, nine? Nine girls, you _beast_ you.” He laughs, the same friendly laugh he's been sharing with them all day. “But you did it. Because, you and I, we know the rot in your heart; the way you'll do anything to be loved, even if it's just for a second. The way you _crave_ them, the way you hurt the other ones because you love the people in your life too much to hurt them. I _know_ Ianto, I was there, remember?"

 

"No more.” His voice breaks as he begs. “Please."

 

_:: It's bloodier than he meant it to be. He's never...he's never beaten one of them like this, never, and even if he wanted to he couldn't leave her like this, bloody and broken to die alone on a stained mattress in the rain. ::_

 

"Remember it, Ianto. Remember it and stop screaming in my ear, you stubborn, useless, little shit. It never did those girls any good, the screaming. Remember how you call me? How I help you dump the bodies?"

 

_:: Adam meets him at the door, carding his fingers reassuringly through Ianto's hair, using the thumb he sticks in his mouth to wipe away the flecks of blood spattered across the dark haired man's face like freckles._

 

_"It's okay. It's okay, better her than Chy, right? It's_ okay _Ianto. We'll take care of it again, our little secret."_

 

_They leave the warehouse in flames behind them and drop the broken body outside a weevil nest Jack's been keeping an eye on. If anyone ever finds her, there won't be a trace left of him to find on her body, not under the teeth marks. ::_

 

"I love what a rush it is, feeding in the bad stuff." There's nothing left in him to struggle against the press of Adam's mouth to his, the way the tongue sliding against his tastes wrong, feels wrong. He's too busy clinging to the man crouched over him, unable to breathe past the horror. "I'm so impressed by you Ianto Jones. You're not the one I thought would spot me first and not in so little time. Less than a day?” He's let go of Ianto long enough to clap, not that the man can do anything other than slump against the wall, gasping for air. “Better trained men than you have let my kind right in. I can't believe you're _still_ trying to fight the implant. If I had time, I'd wait for the slow crumble, but between you and me?” Adam's voice drops to a smug purr as he leans in close. “Tosh is waiting in the car for me and I can guarantee she's a sure thing, so better not to underestimate you again." Adam's lips brush the lobe of his ear as he cradles Ianto's head in his palms. His words are soft, crooned quietly enough that Ianto can't stop himself from listening, from focusing on anything other than the filth in himself.

 

"You've made up your mind, remember? You don't think you can do this anymore. You've tried so hard to save her Ianto, I know you have, but she doesn't love you. She _never_ loved you and inside you know it. If she loved you, she wouldn't have taken your baby away. She wouldn't have left you and Jack knocked askew when she left. _She's_ why Jack treats you the way he does. You've been trying to tell yourself he just doesn't notice, but he does. He's punishing you for not being able to do this one little thing for him. Not being able to man up and take control in the _one_ place he shouldn't have had to be in charge. He resents you for letting her go, but you know the way to make it stop. You have to kill her Ianto. As soon as you see her, no matter who's there. You know you _have_ to kill Cheyenne to stop feeling like this Ianto. You've made up your mind and one of you has to die so you don't feel this way anymore. It's her or you, Remember?"

 

***

 

Jack almost misses it.

 

The Hub is settled into sleep mode, lights dimmed or off, machines humming softly as Jack jogs up to the main work floor, leaving a trail of water behind him, streaming off his coat. It's not a lot and odds are good it'll be dried up and gone before morning, if not Jack gets to stand back and watch Ianto scowl and fume while he mops.

 

Ianto is adorable when he's mad.

 

He's hungry, never made it further than his favorite quiet thinking spot on a nearby roof, and cold from the elements besides. His mouth twists in amusement as Jack shakes his head hard enough to send water scattering through the air; Batman never got drenched like this when _he_ needed to brood. There's still a light on from the galley and a familiar leather bound journal that's tumbled to the floor next to the lounge couch, both good signs that Ianto's still ghosting around the Hub despite the late hour. The amused twist turns to a full grin as Jack lets his imagination run away with him, clomping up the stairs towards his office because Batman may have stayed dry on the rooftops but Jack has something better than a Robin, Alfred, and Catwoman all in one and he's pretty sure he can talk him into a quick tumble before sending him home.

 

His regular impulse is to drop his coat in his office and call for Ianto. He's halfway up the stairs, mouth already open when he stops because he knows the sound and feel of everything in the Hub intimately and something is very wrong.

 

It's routine paranoia, check every entrance and exit, that even draws his eyes up as far as the greenhouse where he sees it the first time but almost looks away. He almost doesn't recognize what has his body bolting up the stairs in a sprint, brain stuttering over the answer while he's trying to figure out what it is about the low sleep mode lights glinting off the sleeve of Ianto's shirt that's got his heart pounding as he runs.

 

It clicks when he reaches for the door, eyes already tracking up the empty center aisle, that if Ianto was in the center of the greenhouse then he shouldn't be visible above the plants. Particularly not his handcuffed wrists at the small of his back.

 

It's the neatest suicide staging Jack has ever seen, and he lets a small hysterical part of his brain baffle at the kind of anal retentiveness that takes the time to rearrange the greenhouse to make space for a crime scene cleanup, lays down plastic sheeting, and then arranges the correct cleaning products on the cleared tables before fucking hanging himself oh fuck oh fuck oh fu...

 

"..ck, fuck, fuck." The weak knee Ianto aims towards Jack's face as he wraps his arms around the man's thighs, lifting him until the rope goes slack is the most fantastic thing to happen to Jack since he put his first foot off the Valiant and back onto the ground. " _Fuck_!"

 

There's nothing about the next ten minutes that aren't awful in ways Jack usually reserves for end of the world scenarios. Ianto fights him the entire time he's trying to keep any more weight off the rope while dragging one of the heavy steel tables the seven inches he needs to put it firmly under the polished black shoes that keep lashing out at him.

 

Getting up on the table is the worst part. He can't hold Ianto in place while he climbs on and the little shit, that stubborn, determined little _shit_ , buckles his knees and slumps forward, giving his weight to the noose again. Jack's boots slap the table top with a ringing stomp as he crosses the two wide steps separating them, clenching his fingers in the back collar of Ianto's suit and yanking his weight up again; forcing his body back against Jack's while he fumbles his boot knife free and begins sawing at the hemp tied around the support beams arching overhead. The rope snaps with a thick ripping sound and Jack lets Ianto's mostly limp (don't say dead) weight carry them both down to the tabletop with a crash that rocks the sturdy steel furniture.

 

"Why?" He doesn't want to take the time to unspool the silver tape twisted under the hemp he's fumbling the knot free from, but Jack's shaking, every inch of him including his hands, and he doesn't dare take the six inches of razor sharp steel anywhere near that pale abused throat. He tosses the rope as hard as he can into the gloom, short square nails scrabbling uselessly at the tape for too-long seconds before the end catches and comes free far enough to yank the thick black hood away.

 

There's more of the silver tape crossed over Ianto's mouth, which explains why he never cursed Jack in those moments when the air wasn't so restricted, and tears running from wide frantic eyes that skip around to everything but Jack. The boy rocks backwards with a pained shout as the adhesive tries to cling to him before coming free, leaving his face red.

 

"You shouldn't… have cut me…down Jack." The last hope Jack has that they're under attack shrivels up and dies at the painful rasp of Ianto's faltering words, rough edged and thick as they force up through the mottled black and purple ring as thick as two fingers circling his throat.

 

"I had to. I couldn't...you can't leave me like that." He thinks about unlocking the cuffs from Ianto's wrist and dismisses the idea almost instantly. Something is obviously, frighteningly, wrong with Ianto as well, his whole team most likely and until Jack knows what it is, releasing his quiet, deadly and determined lover seems like a very bad idea. "You have to tell me what's wrong Ianto. Something's wrong with you and I can't fix it if I don't know." Jack twists his fingers into Ianto's hair, forcing the younger man to lift his head up, keeping him from untangling himself from under Jack and trying to walk away.

 

"You can't _fix_ this Jack.” It's hard not to cringe away from the ragged edge to Ianto's voice. “I am a monster. I have done very, very terrible things and I have to stop myself now. Right now, while I'm still terrified and disgusted enough that I can."

 

"You're not making sense. Ianto, you're fine. You've not been turned into any kind of monster. You're still human..."

 

"Not that kind of fucking monster Jack!" His wail is anguished cracking twice before fading away into nothing. Ianto bends forward, back tightly arched as he presses his forehead to the shoulder of Jack's shirt, tears seeping through the fabric. "I. I r...I hurt...I can't even make myself say it. Ein Tad yn y nefoedd, sancteiddier dy enw," His voice falters and the gravel rumble trails off in confusion. "I don't know the words anymore. I used to, I knew them yesterday." He falters when Jack cradles the back of his head before yanking away violently enough that Jack scrambles to keep him from tumbling to the floor. "Don't touch me Jack. I raped and murdered nine women."  
  


"Ianto, that's not even kind of funny." He rocks back, glaring down at the younger man only to see him start to shake, hard enough to make the cuffs on him rattle. "Stop kidding around."

 

"I'm serious. I murdered them, in cold blood. Nine of them in the two and a half years I've been with Torchwood Three."

 

"You," Jack stops mid-sentence, tilting Ianto's face up closer to the light. "Say that again." He watches Ianto falter, eyes pleading up at him and stares at him until those familiar lips tremble once, moving to shape around vicious lies and Jack lets himself close his eyes in relief as he sees it again, the distant gaze focused ever so slightly to the left of his ear as Ianto begins to speak, left pupil dilating and the right contracting, ever so subtly. "That's what I thought. Come on, something's wrong with you. And we're fixing it now before you get the urge to do a header off a building."

 

Ianto comes with him, unsteady on his feet as Jack keeps one hand on his elbow, the other resting reassuringly on one of the boy's cuffed hands, squeezing. He steers them up to his office, cuffing one of Ianto's wrists to the arm of the chair and shoving his sleeve up far enough to give him a nice thin pulse point to work with.

 

"Don't pick the lock, don't lick anything you think is bad for you, don't go looking for sharp objects, don't try to get over my desk to the gun. I need to get a few things and you will be unarmed, in that chair, alive, when I return and that's an order." The cuffs rattle as Ianto tugs against them once before nodding tiredly at Jack's command. He slumps down into the chair, hiding his face in his hands.

 

"You're wasting your time. Nine women Jack, and Chy was supposed to be one of them."

 

"Now I know something's wrong with you. Ianto, your flat had more cameras than the pawn, I was there...probably more than I should have been and I promise you, even with everything wrong in your life, you were smitten from the moment she threatened to take her earrings out and kick my ass. You're _sick_ Ianto. Something has happened to you, or been done to you. Just let me show you, okay?"

 

"And when you realize no one did anything to me and I'm serious?" For a minute the thought tries to creep in and take root, those wide long fingered hands could very easily do everything he's talking about...if they were someone else's hands.

 

"In that case, I will deal with you myself. Okay?" Jack leans forward, letting the fringe of his hair flop forward over his wet eyes as he presses his lips to the other man's forehead. "But you didn't do it, so I won't have to. Wait here."

 

The lie detector is the easy part, Jack keeps it right in the safe in his office for ease of access, but he has to run down to the medical bay for pen lights and the digital cameras have all been moved since the last time he needed one. Jack all but dumps the entire contents of the conference room to the floor, digging through drawers and cupboards until he finds one in in a neat pyramid of AV equipment by the back storage hall.

 

Ianto's still where Jack left him, taking shallow perfectly spaced breaths as he stares down at his one free hand, shaking hard enough to thump against the wood where it rests on the top of Jack's desk. He doesn't look up as Jack sets up the lie detector and sets a blank memory stick in the camera, ignoring every movement Jack makes until the immortal man is seated across from him.

 

“Best lie detector on the planet. If something is untrue the light turns red. Easy as that.” The switch under his finger feels more like a big mauve button as Jack flips it on, sending the bright green glow into a gentle strobe. “Go.”

 

“My hands.” Ianto's hoarse voice drops into a mutter, bruised neck stiff and shoulders drawn up as the boy stares resolutely at the regular blinking. “My hands around her throat. And it felt so good. Squ...” He looks up, just for a moment at Jack and the camera, and he stares at Jack with terrified mismatched eyes as his voice trails off into silence before swallowing audibly. “Squeezing the life out of her. I can't. I can't tell you, just believe me! Believe me when I say there's something in me that wants to kill. Look at the light. The light's still green, Jack.”

 

“I don't believe it. That just tells me you believe it. Tell me about one of the other girls.” Ianto doesn't look at him, stares at the pulsing emerald glow until Jack slams his hands on the desk in frustration, reaching out and yanking Ianto's face around towards his. “You promised to let me try, so bloody well work with me. Tell me about one of the other girls!”

 

“She was so small! She was almost right, almost Chy's size and she was wearing this overly-sweet off-brand perfume. She tried to...she tried to run and I was too fast. I was too big and too fast and she was...she...s-she was crying.”

 

“So are you.” He reaches out, running his thumb over the bruised shadows under those piercing blue eyes and the tears streaming steadily from them. “This isn't you, Ianto.” Jack reaches up, plucking the still green light directly off the machine and dropping it in his drawer. “Something has happened to you, changed you. You're not a murderer, okay? You said there were nine girls right? Nine, since you started working here? So where are they? We have access to every missing persons and dead body report filed in the United Kingdom as well as the ones that don't get filed, so how come none of our profiling software noticed any unusual pattern in missing young women? Describe them. All of them, right now; tell me about them. What did they look like? Number one; the first girl, what did she look like?”

 

“She was tall and dark like Lisa.”

 

“Age?”

 

“Early twenties maybe? I don't know...”

 

“The second girl?” Ianto doesn't look up at Jack's prodding, shrugging a little and rapping his knuckles against the desktop. “Don't shrug at me. Tell me what the second girl looked like.”

 

“I don't know.” The young man grimaces as Jack leans forward and pins his fidgeting hand.

 

“What do you mean you don't know. You remember what the first girl looked like. You remember the way the other one smelled, and you can't even give me a height, weight, and race for number two? What did she look like?!”

 

“I don't know!” He's trying to shout through his injured throat and it's coming out a crackling growl. “She was...I don't fucking _remember_ what she looked like! I don't _care_ what she looked like Jack!” Ianto's eyes are darting desperately around the room, breaths coming in shallow pants and pupils shrinking and dilating at a visible and alarming pace as he grips his head before curling his arms over his head, pressing his forehead roughly against the desktop. “Why are you doing this to me?!”

 

“Because I'm seeing signs of memory damage. Because that headache you have right now is from your pupils doing the goddamned Harlem shake every time you tell that bullshit story of being the Cardiff Ripper. Because I've known monsters and murderers, but more importantly I know _you_ Ianto Jones, and there's nothing in you that is capable of what you're saying you've done. I promise. I've been where you are, okay? I've had someone in my head, making me think things and I know what it feels like, how real it is, but it isn't. It isn't real. I promise, I will swear on everything I have ever loved in my very long life, Ianto, that you're the only victim in your story.”

 

“I was going to hurt Cheyenne.” The expression on Ianto's face is vulnerable and frightened as he stares up at Jack from where he's slumped across the desk. “I didn't try to kill myself because of what I've already done Jack, heaven help me, I should have but I didn't. I tried because it's the only thing I can think about now. She called me, when I was setting up. She wanted me to come over and I almost went. I keep seeing the way her eyes will look when I wrap all that long pretty hair around her throat and pull...”

 

“Stop it.” His voice wobbles, Jack can hear it and clears his throat. “It's not you.”

 

“Well it fucking _feels_ like me! It's _in me_ now, and even if it's not real it feels that way! I feel that way!” He comes up with a clatter, chair crashing to the floor as Ianto surges to his feet. “I'm this monster now that wants to take my son's _mother_ from him and I don't want to be and it was all I could think of to stop myself.” The light over his desk is bright, bright enough to drop Ianto's face into shadow as he hangs his head. The arm still cuffed to the over turned chair hangs limp and weighted at his side as he stands, swaying on his feet. “What else am I supposed to do Jack? Because I won't be this man. I refuse.”

 

“I don't know yet.” He's on his feet, stomping around the desk to spin the raven haired Welshmen on his heels, digging his hands deep into Ianto's hair and kissing him with everything in him that knows Ianto is wrong, that knows he's been hurt; been tricked into hurting himself. “I don't know, but I'm going to figure it out.”

 

***

There's a file open on the back monitor of the rift manipulator, static lines scrolling across the paused surface when Jack escorts Ianto back down to the main floor, wary of leaving him alone while the immortal man starts his search.

 

“What's this on the monitor?” Ianto glimpses at it, peering over the curve of Jack's shoulder, and pauses with his mouth half open for a moment before frowning and clearing his throat with a pained grimace.

 

  
“I can't say. Jack, I _actually_ can't say. I'm trying to because I _know_ what that is, I pulled it up, but I'm not...allowed?” There's a questioning lilt to his voice as Ianto blinks slowly, rolling a nearby chair close enough for him to slump down into. The look on Ianto's face is familiar to someone who's seen as many people working their way through altered memories as Jack has. He hunkers down on his heels, balancing himself on the younger man's knees and watches the panic drain away slowly, rage rushing in to replace it. It's an expression Jack's familiar with although he's never seen it in slow motion from this close and he watches heavy brows draw down, lips pressing together hard enough to go bloodless pale before pulling back from Ianto's teeth in a snarl. “That fucking cunt! He tried to make me _kill_ myself.”

 

“ _Who_?”

 

“I _can't_. I can't...” His eyes are reacting again, pupils blown frighteningly wide. Under his hands Ianto is shaking, from effort or agony is unclear but Jack thinks it might be both as he watches Ianto sink his teeth into his lip until it bleeds. “Watch today.”

 

“Stop before you give yourself a stroke.” There's always water in Owen's desk despite the medic's refusal to drink it warm and Jack steals it, prying Ianto's clenched fingers open and shoving the open bottle in his hand. “Stop trying. I've got it. I'm looking, okay?”

 

Jack looks. For more than an hour he stands there, blood boiling with rage as he fills every screen on the relay with footage from the day and watches Adam hurt his team in big and little ways. Across one screen he watches Owen flinching back from mirrors and windows, recoiling from his reflection every time, as if expecting something different there, without ever seeming to notice. On the small screen he watches Indy again, focusing on his fear this time instead of reacting as the boy, never warm with strangers on a good day, tries his hardest to get away from the intruder grabbing at him. Sprawled large and in Hi-Def he watches Adam lurk around corners and machinery, an ambush predator on the hunt. Watches the thing pretending to be one of them yank Tosh into a supply cupboard, shove Cheyenne into the archive stacks, and pin Owen in the airlock before the door rolls open all the way. Can see for the first time the frustrated rage on Adam's face when Gwen sees him before he can get to her.

 

“There, that's different.” Ianto's at his side, voice almost completely gone now. His throat is swollen noticeably, rope markings darkened almost black in a way that makes Jack wince every time he watches the line bob up and down with every swallow. He reaches over, tapping the screen where Adam's got his hand on the back of Gwen's neck. “He's not talking to her. He talks to the rest of us, look.”

 

“Okay. Okay so if he can feed himself in through touch silently...then what does he have to say to us that's so important?” Next to him Ianto starts to speak, winces, and stomps off around the rift manipulator, yanking the leather bound book off the floor and flipping through it rapidly before returning and shoving the opened pages under Jack's nose. Ianto's handwriting is narrow, the tips of the letters pointed as it slants left across the page and in the black ink etched heavily on the page is a small hilarious anecdote involving Owen, Ianto, and a water balloon carefully filled with melted butter. “Owen? _Owen attacked you with butter_? He wouldn't...that son of a bitch. He didn't _just_ add himself, he altered things.”

 

“Call?” The ragged whisper gives out halfway through.

 

“Stop talking, you're making it worse. Come on.” The lights have been turned back up to full and with the rest of the building settled down and silent the work floor is eerie and unfamiliar as they let themselves into the medbay. Ianto's up on the table before he can say anything, rolling his sleeve back up around his elbow when he sees Jack rooting around in the cupboards where the injectables are kept. “Since you're not going to be swallowing any pills for a while, I thought I'd get you out the good stuff.” A syringe is brandished triumphantly for a moment before Jack's across the room, thumping up a good vein and sliding it in. “It's the least I can do since I'm not calling Owen yet. Not until I'm sure he didn't implant self-destruct cues in all of you.”

 

“He has Tosh.” It's still more a matter or reading Ianto's lips than hearing him, although it's easier now that his face has smoothed out, the furrows and grimaces caused by pain already fading off his face.

 

“I know he has Tosh, but she's safer with him thinking he's won. I call just her in and he'll know.”

 

“He's touching her.”

 

“And he'll pay for it.” In his pocket Jack's phone starts buzzing, jangling against change as he fishes it out. It's Cheyenne at a quarter to three in the morning. Jack looks up from the phone to Ianto who may or may not still be primed to take one of the two of them out or die trying. “Go get one of Indiana's ice lollies, it'll help with your throat.” If Ianto suspects who's on the phone he doesn't let on, nodding and taking the stairs at a jog, vanishing out of sight. Jack lifts the phone to his ear, thumbing the line open and she's talking before he can draw a breath to address her.

 

“All your shit is here. Yours and Ianto's, it's _all_ here in my bedroom and scattered all through the house even though you both _left me_ out here in this big stupid house months ago. I've got your books, and your clothes. There are like, five fucking dozen texts on my phone between the three of us in the last day and a half and a message on my white board where you refused to pick up the dry cleaning _today_ unless we wrote the request in haiku, which Ianto has done and it's a rude one. There are extra vehicles in my driveway and,” her voice trails off into a long indrawn hiss. “Jack, Adam isn't in my phone. Not in my address book, not in any of my photo albums, he's not there. Someone's trying to erase us, we need to call him and...”

 

“No!” Her frantic babble cuts short at his roar. “No. Under no circumstances are you to contact Adam.”

 

“You're not saying _Adam_...”

 

“I am. Look, I haven't gotten a chance to see all the files he accessed, but so far, personnel don't seem to have been opened. That means he shouldn't know where any of you are. You're safe at home, I want you and Indiana to stay there for now and you try and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning I want you in town, but don't come to the Hub after you drop off Indy. I want you to come in late. Right now, half of us know about Adam. I don't want the three of us together in one place again until after he's been dealt with. It's for security!” He has to raise his voice over hers as she starts to complain.

 

“Fine, but deal with him, because if he's still there when I come in I'm going to assume you're compromised and shoot before I start asking questions.”

 

“If he's still running around freely that's a safe assumption to make. Grab something to write with.” Carefully he gives her a list of dates and times. “Those are moments from the cctv footage that will back up your story, just in case.” She's quiet, pen scratching over the paper fast enough that Jack can hear it across the line. “How's your head?”

 

“Killing me.”

 

“A side effect of Adam's. I think everyone's had one all day.”

 

“Look, this is...awkward. I'm gonna go, but, uh, check on Ianto? He was rearranging the greenhouse two hours ago, so he's probably neurotically cleaning the archives by now.” If Jack takes to steps back he can see Ianto from the shoulders up through the high windows, some kind of frozen fruit bar stuck in his mouth as he stands at the monitor relay.

 

“I've got him. Go to bed Cheyenne.”

 

***


	7. Chapter 7

 

They spend the rest of the night tracking Adam back as far as they can across the city to the spot of the small modulated Rift spike from two nights ago. The one they thought nothing came from. The pole camera on that particular corner is a frequent victim of vandals in need of a reliable place to deal; there wasn't anything suspicious about a dead camera and a false surge in Rift readings until now, when Jack's got reason to take a personal look at the footage and readouts.

 

He's got no one to blame but himself. Toshiko is brilliant, easily the best interpreter of the Rift he's ever had working for Torchwood, but she's still only accurate about seventy-seven percent of the time. Even if she _was_ working from specialized training that Jack's seriously considering giving her and not just twenty-first century intuitive maths, he doubts she would have been able to tell the difference between what he's looking at right now and an actual false Rift spike. The readings on the graph are the exact frequency of the Rift at an inactive spike, but it takes a Time Agent's eye to pick out the perfect sequences measured out in the peaks and valleys; to see how the spike is open two and a half beats longer than it should be. It takes a professional to see that someone opened the Rift on purpose

 

The siren on the airlock takes them both by surprise. Ianto's fingers strike the keys with a rapid clatter, clearing the screens one after another while Jack folds the rift readouts in half, sticking them into the pages of Ianto's diary as he lifts a brow at Owen, frozen like a deer next to the coat racks. He can barely see the medic behind the oversized spill of yellow and pink lilies and carnations he's clutching close to his chest and Owen uses them as a shield, sidling up towards Tosh's desk and putting them down quickly, disappearing down the back stairs without a word. Jack leans over Ianto's shoulder, checking the time and is only a bit surprised to see that it's already eight.

 

“Ready?” Ianto's been saving his voice since around four-thirty, but he nods decisively. Jack escorted him downstairs to the locker rooms for a shower almost an hour ago and unless Ianto stretches just right, the marks from the rope and cuffs are hidden under his fresh suit. “Let's go.” They split, Ianto disappearing up the back spiraled stairs while Jack makes his way up to his office, checking to make sure his gun is loaded while he watches Tosh and Adam let themselves in. Adam's got Tosh tucked under his arm, and Jack's brain keeps trying to insist that this is correct, that he's seen the two of them like this a hundred times even as he watches the rest of his team orbiting around the monster in their midst. Owen pops out of his hiding space and Jack watches the short awkward moment between the three of them down on the floor, keeping his eyes focused on the twist of Adam's smirk. He watches from the doorway of his office, fingers digging into the door frame as the alien gathers Jack's team around him with a laugh while he wraps them in a giggling cheerful group hug. Ianto catches his eye from the other end of the catwalk long enough to make sure they're on the same page before letting himself down onto the floor.

 

It's exactly the right distraction. Adam tracks Ianto from the moment the younger man hits the bottom stair and makes an obvious detour to go wide around the laughing group, just outside the reach of Adam's grasp.

 

“Hey, Ianto! Come here.” That's Jack's cue. He watches the ginger man carefully, glancing over at the rest of his team to make sure all eyes are on Ianto's very cold, public dismissal of Adam; the one who's everyone's best friend. There's a moment where the Welshman barely rolls back on the heels of his shoes out of Adam's reach when Jack both is and isn't surprised to hear Adam's tone turn nasty. The Rift manipulator is between himself and the rest of the team and Jack eases around the far side while Adam takes the shorter route around the front to drop into his chair. The monitor at Adam's station comes on with a touch and Jack's behind the alien's chair, barrel pressed firmly through that tumble of red hair and against the scalp before the smaller man can lean any further back. Adam's hands start to rise, only to freeze still as the click of a chambering bullet cuts over the low babble of the teams' typical morning greeting.

 

“Talk to me Adam, if that's even your name.” The metallic report of Jack cocking his gun has drawn all eyes to him and he sees Ianto taking advantage of that from his peripherals, settling in behind the rest of the team, ready to intervene.

 

“What?” There's rage, badly hidden rage, under the jovial confusion being projected by the thing on the wrong end of his gun and it warms the part of Jack that's been silently nervous that this was all his own private breakdown. What he's hearing is the kind of anger that only comes from being caught too soon. Gwen is speaking to him, voice soothing as she tries to talk him down, but Jack only has eyes for the imposter making as if to spin his chair.

 

“Hold still, hands flat on the desk, palms down. Move again and I'll have every right to blow your brains out right here.”

 

“Jack!” Tosh's voice is a desperate yelp. “Jack, stop! What is this, some kind of sick joke, because it isn't funny!”

 

“No, it isn't funny at all. Adam here didn't exist until two days ago. He's not who we all think he is. He's been feeding himself into our memories by touch. Haven't you, Adam?”

 

“What? Look, can somebody just tell me what's going on, please?” Now Owen's trying to get his attention, circling slowly left until Jack whips his free hand up, pinning the medic in place with the gesture.

 

“Owen, this is not the time to make me jumpy. Back with the others.”

 

“Jack, we've known him for _years_. He's part of the team.”

 

“No, he just made you think that.”

 

“Come on Jack.” His attention's been split too long and Adam feels comfortable, or at least lucky because he whips the chair around, gun knocked off to the side as he reaches beseechingly upwards, his eyes sparkling with triumph. A spark that dies when Jack doesn't step away or reach to intercept, instead whipping his arm back through the air as hard as he can until the nickel-plated steel connects with the side of Adam's head, knocking him backwards in his chair.

 

“Ah-ah-ah, you don't get _me_ again, not like that. You should have put more effort into being thorough and less into mind fucking my team, because your parlor tricks only work if we're too confused to pay attention to them. Because yesterday, I thought I _knew_ you; today, I look at you and if I think about it I can see you there, but I don't _feel_ anything when I think about you. The rest of them, are _mine_. I'm so proud of them, I'd do a hundred unspeakable things for my kids back there, but you? For the man I can 'tell anything to', I don't feel anything for you at all. Lace your fingers at the back of your neck and then get up, we're taking a walk to the vaults.”

 

There's blood, sliding sluggishly down the side of Adam's face from the gash Jack's gunsight carved into his scalp as he glares up at Jack. The immortal man takes three large steps backwards, pitch black end of a gun aimed casually between Adam's eyes.

 

“This is ridiculous Jack...”

 

“Move!”

 

The low snick of a slide being drawn has a smile curling across Adam's face. He doesn't have to look behind him to know that Toshiko has her gun drawn and aimed directly between his shoulders. Tosh was always the most likely to be enthralled by the alien, but Jack had to know for sure if it was more than just her.

 

“No!” Her voice is shrill as she braces herself to fire.

 

“Tosh, I'm just moving him.”

 

“Let him go!” From this angle, Jack's the only one who can see the pure self-indulgent glee on Adam's face as Tosh screams.

 

“I'm just going to lock him up Toshiko. I'm not going to hurt him.”

 

“You already hurt him, why should I believe you! Drop the gun Jack. Let him go, now!”

 

Neither of them can see Ianto pounce, but they both hear it in Gwen's frightened exclamations and the roar of rage and despair from Tosh as Ianto wrestles the weapon from her easily, restraining her against his chest as she kicks and screams. For the first time there's nothing of victory in Adam's expression.

 

“See, what you did to us? Let's move, now.”

 

***

 

Adam slams his palm against the two inches of bulletproof glass between the two of them, staring at Jack from under the edges of his fringe. Down the hall Janet and the juveniles are rioting, wailing and howling in rage.

 

“Let me out, Jack. You're confused and it's okay. I forgive you, but can't we talk about this?”

 

“Absolutely. Let's talk about this. I'll go first. I have a Rift spike a little less than two days ago that has all the markings of being deliberately induced. I have footage of you walking away from the area where it happened but no footage of you walking _to_ it. I have a personnel file that is less than thirty-six hours old that's only been touched from your station. I've got footage, with sound, of you lurking behind things, picking my team off one at a time. In fact, let's just shorten my really long list and say that I've got what some would refer to as a ton of evidence that all says I should kill you as soon as possible. Okay, now it's your turn.”

 

“Well, that didn't take long at all.” Adam grins nastily at Jack, crossing the small square of open floor and dropping down onto the bunk fastened to the wall. The soles of his boots are brand new, hardly a scuff on them as the alien stretches out his legs, crossing them at the ankle and folding his hands across his stomach. “I really thought it would take longer, I am impressed. I've got to admit, I kind of hoped it would be you who found me out. I mean, I had this great speech ready about how I'm just trying to survive, and how everything I did was for your benefits to give to the others, but honestly? I would have laughed through the fucking thing and had to start all over again.”

 

“You changed us.”

 

“I surely did and it was fantastic. Like pouring hot oil down an Oskie tunnel just to watch them run. Don't take it so _personally_ Time Agent, it's just like with glue. Sometimes you have to...scuff up the surface a bit for things to take.” Adam's boots drag along the cement floor noisily to make his point.

 

“You called me a Time Agent.”

 

“Because you are. Only a primitive or an idiot wouldn't recognize that rig around your wrist. Tell me how you found me out when I made sure the first thing I did was to imprint each of you with how very important it was not to talk about our... _private_ conversations.”

 

“Obviously you should have been a little less literal. Ianto outed you. You may have told him not to talk about your brainwashing, but you never told him not to show me his diary or the footage of you doing it. Seems he took offense to being made to believe he was a serial killer.” The smug grin on Adam's face is brittle now, his hands clenched into fists now instead of gently laced together. “Pretty poor planning, if I do say so myself.”

 

“Your slut is the _least_ of my concerns. Either of them. They should be your concern though. I set that boy of yours like a time bomb, every pump of his heart is one tick closer to catastrophe.”

 

“I know. He told me that too.” Adam smiles at that, a genuine grin for the first time since the cell door shut and it makes Jack's hackles rise.

 

“Oh, that's sweet. You think what I did works the same for you as it does for them. No. No, no, no Agent. See, I know that _you_ got all sorts of special upgrades and training that your standard human doesn't come equipped with. _You_ are a special little snowflake Jack. Between natural evolution, Agency enhancements, and that pesky little issue of resurrection, I was _barely_ able to get into you. I hardly did any changing at all, just enough to make you believe what the others did, and even that had you going full on hallucination off the rails trying to recognize something was wrong. Your team isn't so special. _You_ can fight my implants now that you know what to look for, but that boy of yours? He's still one trigger shy of a spectacular murder and-or suicide.” Jack feels the blood begin to drain out of his face as Adam laughs. “Boy, I sure hope you two did the smart thing once you found out, like inform Dr. Morgan that she's the target of a killer. It would be just _awful_ if no one told her and loyal little Ianto went to find her thinking he was okay.”

 

“I could kill you now.”

 

“No you can't. I'm more than just physical, Agent. In fact, physicality is the _least_ of me. I buried myself deep in all of you. As long as you remember me, I exist and so does everything I've done. So shoot me, because it won't do any good. You're the ones making me live now Jack, and you and I both know that you, at least, always remember what you kill.”

 

“So killing you is as easy as forgetting you? Oh friend, did you come to the _wrong_ place.”

 

“Tick tick. My watch says it's almost nine. I wonder what time Cheyenne is coming in today? Run away Jack. I triggered your boy with an either-or scenario and knowing about it isn't going to be enough to stop him from picking himself or her.” Adam leans forward, propping his chin up on his folded fist. “I wonder how long he can fight it.”

 

“I'm going to make you pay.”

 

“Yeah, but it won't be as much as you're paying. Run, Jack. Run!”

 

Adam's laughter chases him down the cell block, echoing weirdly and resonating with Janet's howls of aggression until they make Jack's ears ache. He slams the door behind himself, cutting off the racket and only now that he's out of the alien's eye sight does he move from a stalk to a run. The metal stairs ring and clatter as Jack pounds up them, bursting onto the work floor breathlessly. Tosh has been settled onto the battered couch in the lounge and she looks up long enough to glare hatefully at him before turning her attention back to Gwen who's muttering lowly, rubbing soothing circles up and down Tosh's back. It's the work of seconds to scan the floor and see that Ianto is gone.

 

“Where's Ianto?”

 

“What did you do to Adam?” The quiet reassurance of her teammates isn't enough anymore. Tosh comes off the couch, storming across the floor in his direction. Her gun and holster are gone, locked away by Ianto most likely, but that doesn't keep the small woman from looking any less fierce as she comes for him like a storm. “Where is he Jack?”

 

“He's alive in the vaults, exactly like I told you.” She slaps his hand away as he reaches for her. “Tosh, I'm not lying to you. Adam isn't who we think he is. He confessed. He's been hurting us...”

 

“He loves me.”

 

“He raped you.” She freezes, hands on his chest from where she was poised to shove him back. Instead she uses him to push off of, reeling backwards and tripping over her heels, barely staying on her own feet.

 

“Don't...why would you _say_ that?” Shivers run along her body as Jack reaches out, cradling the back of her skull as he wraps his arm around her, holding her tightly.

 

“Because thirty-hours ago you didn't know who he was and he singled you out for a relationship that wasn't real, that you never had a say in, and he used mind control to do it. Where I'm from, and on a hundred other worlds, that's what it is. It's all on Mainframe if you don't believe me, just queue up yesterday's footage from any station. Pick a random time since he wasn't able to go more than an hour or so without trying to change something.”

 

“I hate you, Jack.”

 

“I know sweetheart. I'm fixing it though. Now please, where's Ianto?” Tosh looks up at him silently, mouth set into a firm little line as she remains silent.

 

“He and Cheyenne are up in the conference room.” Owen's voice is quiet, steady in a way it hasn't been over the past two days. He comes up behind Tosh, resting his hand on her shoulder as Jack steps away from her. “Jack, the greenhouse...”

 

“Is off limits until further notice. Go get the Retcon, Owen. Doses for everyone.”

 

He doesn't run up to the conference room, leery of creating panic where perhaps none is needed but he does take the risers in pairs. Gwen's watching him anyway, hovering on the edge of her seat like she wants to call up to him or follow him. He pretends he doesn't see her, crossing the catwalk as fast as he can.

 

The door to the room is cracked and he can hear them before he sees them, his heart crawling down out of his throat when he hears the quiet murmur of Cheyenne's voice answering the ragged grumble of Ianto's.

 

“You're fine. We can do this, okay? Someone will come in soon.”

 

“I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Just don't move. Keep looking at me and don't move, oh holy God, you might have to shoot me; I am _so_ sorry baby.” The door swings further out as Jack carefully slides through, scanning the room. Cheyenne's work is still scattered up and down along the table, the chairs all tucked neatly out of the way. The lights are off, room lit only by the ambient glow coming in from the main floor. They're tucked up against the counter on the far wall, Cheyenne perched on the counter top and Ianto standing over her, bent until their heads are pressed together. They're both pale and trembling as Ianto's thumb sweeps back and forth across the side of her throat, fingers curled around the nape of her neck, other hand entwined with hers. “I know you're scared Chy, but I can feel your pulse baby and it's so fast so I need you to just calm down, okay?”

 

“I'm calm. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not moving.” Her voice is high, tight and breathy as her eyes dart away from Ianto's and land on Jack. “It's okay. Jack's here. Jack, can you please come help Ianto? He, uh, he can't quite make himself let go of me.”

 

“Cuff me please, Jack.” Neither of them watch him cross the twilit room. They stay pressed together, watching each other from inches apart and now that he's close enough to see it clearly, the moment of almost violence they're frozen in has his stomach twisted. There are going to be bruises on the back of Cheyenne's neck where Ianto's fingertips are dug in until his knuckles are white, but his thumb is away from the soft curve of the front of her throat, stroking rapidly back and forth over the artery just under her ear. Every muscle in Ianto's arms are locked and shaking when Jack's hands wrap around them, sliding his palms down the tense forearms until he's got his thumbs digging into the tendons and nerves around Ianto's wrists. Fingers unlock, spasming under the pressure of Jack's grip as he carefully forces both arms high behind Ianto's back. He realizes he doesn't have cuffs on his person about the time a pair are dangled just inside his peripheral vision.

 

“Jack, what's happening?” Gwen's voice is strained as she reaches around his arms, securing the cuffs for him.

 

“Adam's happening.” He doesn't often think about how solidly Ianto's built, but he's not often trying to physically force the younger man to do something. Wrestling him back from where Cheyenne's pinned between the supply cupboard and the counter isn't easy. Not when Jack doesn't want to hurt the man in his arms and Ianto's not so much fighting as just refusing to move in any direction other than back towards the woman on the counter top. “Chy, you okay?”

 

“Yep.” It's a squeak and she clears her throat nervously, hands fluttering at its base. “I'm...I'm fine. He didn't hurt me. He um, he told me what was happening. He pinned me and he told me what was happening. He said, that um, he said that he had a plan and I'd be safe as long as I kept looking at him and just did what he said.”

 

“I couldn't make myself stop, but I could make myself wait for it a while. Long enough for someone to come.” His eyes are too wide, panic-blown as he looks over his shoulder at Jack. “I told you, I refuse to be that man.”

 

“Yeah, you did. You're stubborn as a rock, Ianto Jones. Gwen, take her down to the boardroom. Take Tosh with you too, but tell Owen to bring everything up to my office. We're going to take care of this, right now.”

 

***

 

Ianto goes easily once Cheyenne's out of sight, letting Jack steer him back along the scaffolding and into Jack's office to settle him on the edge of the couch.

 

“I'm going to have to do this for you. I can't let you go until we know it worked. I'm wiping out the last two days for all of us. Adam said the only way to kill him was to erase him, so that's what we're doing. I'm going to have to take the rest of them down easy, swirly things on the screen, low lights, walk them through finding a moment that links them to their past, but I've already got something for you to focus on. I found it on my phone while you were in the shower.”

 

There's easily a couple dozen short videos saved to his phone. He navigates back to the newest one, settling down onto the couch next to Ianto as he angles the screen until they're both looking at Indiana's round face, curls flopped down into his eyes as he squeals with excitement.

 

“ _You're such a smart boy!”_ That's Ianto's voice coming out of the speaker. _“Okay, who's that?”_ The phone pans across the room, following Indy's eyes and Ianto's finger. Cheyenne's dancing around the kitchen, huge pink headphones pulled down over her ears as she pulls things from cupboards and out of the fridge.

 

“ _Mama!”_

 

“ _Good job! And who's that?”_ The phone spins again, tracking across the brightly lit family room and landing on Jack, sprawled asleep across a long grey leather couch, socked feet dangling over the furthest arm, newspaper on the floor in a slump next to his dangling fingers.

 

“ _Ja!”_

 

“ _Excellent! And what is that sneaking up on Jack?”_ Next to him, Ianto huffs in amusement as the phone tracks across the floor to Lucifer, shuffling along on his belly nose up towards the irresistible temptation to touch the only human who refuses to pet him.

 

“ _Daw!”_

 

“ _Yes. Dog. A_ _bad_ _dog. Tell him, say 'Bad dog, Lucifer!'”_

 

“ _Ba daw!”_ The Shar-pei freezes mid crawl, tail thumping once hopefully as the gleeful tone in the baby's voice.

 

“ _You heard him. Bad dog. Leave Jack alone.”_

 

“ _I will make some really wrinkled gloves from you. Get lost.”_ The sound cuts off on the infant's laughter as the dog spins in a low circle and slinks back off out of frame at Jack's sleepy growl.

 

Ianto's bent forward, collar askew and showing off the mess his throat has bruised into as he leans closer to the screen. The slide show has jumped forward and Cheyenne and Indiana are equally startled, blinking among the gently falling remains of a bag of flour that's toppled out of the cupboard and barely missed them. There are swags of lights and greenery strung across the large windows across the room and the dog that waddles past in the background is unbothered by either the mess or the fuzzy antlers strapped to his head.

 

“That's your life Ianto. _That_ is what Adam took from you. Take it back.” There's a light tap on the side of the door frame from Owen, hovering silently in the doorway. “Come in Owen.”

 

“Jack, what's happening?”

 

“I'm saving us. I need a short term dose. Enough to knock the last forty-eight hours out.” The bottle rattles as Jack shakes out one of the small tablets, passing the rest back and holding the small pill between his fingers. “Can you swallow this?” Ianto's eyes snap with an amused sort of annoyance as he looks at the tiny tab.

 

“No. Cut it.” It snaps with barely a struggle under Jack's fingers and Ianto's already leaning forward, mouth parted just enough for Jack's fingertips to slip between slightly dry lips and press the crumbling pieces past teeth that nip on their way out. He's chewing them, grinding the bitter pill to powder and tilting his head just enough for the water Jack eases past his lips to wash the sediment down as opposed to any active swallowing.

 

“There we go. Just relax and remember who you are. You _know_ yourself, trust that.” The corner of Ianto's mouth quirks up as Jack leans forward, brushing his lips over the furrow that's digging itself in deep between the younger man's brows. He shuffles clumsily, already beginning to succumb to the sedative as Jack tries to position him in such a way that he won't slump over onto his bound arms and cut off the circulation. “Just keep your eyes on this.” It doesn't take long, a little less than a minute in Ianto's eyes are slipping shut, fluttering as he fights over and over again to jerk himself back into consciousness. “Shhh, just close your eyes. It's okay.” He gives in with a shudder that runs down to his toes and seems to take all traces of consciousness with it. “One down. Come on, let's go get the rest of you done.”

 

***

 

It occurs to randomly to Jack as he stands at the head looking down the length of the table, that they're going to be receiving a shipment of extra chairs for the conference and board rooms and not a one of them will have any idea why. He takes a deep breath and shrugs off the useless thoughts trying to crowd out his brain. The monitor behind him is running a live feed from the camera in Adam's cell and it's doing more to convince his staff than anything Jack could ever say.

 

Adam is changing.

 

It's not particularly drastic, but all the more instinctively disquieting for that. The man looking up into the lens isn't the same man who went in. The color of his hair has shifted slightly. Something about the angles of his face are wrong as well, _softer_ somehow. Like he's lost bits of himself since Ianto was removed from his influence. The image stays on the screen long enough for everyone to look away in repugnance and let their eyes be drawn again in conformation and then it's easy. They're falling one by one to the dim lights and slowly swirling pattern on the monitor, listening to the croon of his voice as he asks them to remember themselves. Gwen gives over first but it doesn't take long for them all to be sprawled back in their chairs, murmuring under their breath in response as he coaxes them along. Gwen opens her eyes, looking at him when he lifts her hand and slips one of the small white pills into her palm.

 

“I thought I wanted a hero, but...I just want him back.” There's a wonder in Gwen's voice, that rush of discovery Jack wishes he didn't have to wipe away.

 

“There you go. Hold onto that and take this.” She doesn't even check the tab, washing it down with a paper cup half full of lukewarm water before resting her head on her arms and closing her eyes to wait for sleep. Owen's got his glasses sitting on the table next to where his face is buried in his palms. He's quiet, questioning himself under his breath and arching up into the press of Jack's hand as the Captain palms the back of his neck reassuringly. The medic looks up, parts his mouth to speak and shakes his head minutely, plucking the Retcon from Jack's open palm and swallowing it dry before folding his jacket and burying his head in his arms.

 

“I can't.” Tosh is perched on the edge of her chair, eyes on the floor as she refuses to look at him. “I can't do it Jack. I'm going to lose so _much_.” She rolls her chair away from him when he settles on the table but lets him lift her hand in his.

 

“None of it was real.”

 

“It felt real. He loved me...and I loved him. It's no different from a real memory.”

 

“You know that's not true Tosh. You have to let it go.” The whole of her hand disappears between his own when Jack folds both his around her clenched fists and squeezes. She shudders when he slides his hands away, pressing the tablet into her palm.

 

“At least I won't miss him, right?” She tries to smirk at him but the wobble in her lip won't let it twist right. Her hand reaches out and hovers over the power button for the monitors for a moment before fluttering uselessly to her lap, leaving the screen to swirl slowly as she slips the amnesia pill between her lips. “Goodbye, Adam.”

 

He strokes her hair until the rise and fall of her shoulders turns slow and deep before turning his attention to the last member of his team.

 

She's sitting up now, no longer aping a lounge in her chair while flinching every time Jack walked across the floor. Her hair is twisted up in a cluster of braids, weaving in and out of themselves to come together into one large fat twist of hair at the nape of her neck where the entire heavy mass has been plaited further together and it occurs to Jack that he knows exactly how long it takes to do her hair up that way. He knows it takes almost an hour and that she only does it when she's too strung out to rest; the more nervous she is, the more elaborate the twists and pins become.

 

“Didn't sleep at all last night?”

 

“Didn't dare. I can't take that Jack; who'll pick Indy up from daycare?”

 

“I'll deal with it. I'll even text you _and_ Ianto to let you know where he is so neither of you panic.”

 

“Owen said there's half a noose in the greenhouse.” And Jack makes a quick mental note to get that down before he takes his own dose. “I'm going out on a deductive limb and assume it has something to do with the ligature work Ianto is wearing?” She doesn't even wait for Jack to answer, standing up and brushing down her pants. She is, he notes with amusement, dressed for battle in her own way, thin towering heels and skirts traded in for short chunky stacks under ridiculously wide trouser legs. “Did that motherfucker almost kill us both in less than a day?”

 

“Yep.” She clips lightly across the floor and the back of her sweater rides up high enough to see the top of her tattoo when she leans across him to flip the monitor back on with none of Tosh's hesitation.

 

The thing in the cell is writhing around in agony, shape wavering as bits of Adam try to impose themselves on the mostly blank features twisted into a grotesque and silent scream before softening back into the formless blur of its face.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, look at it.” Her voice is thick with revulsion. “We're doing that, aren't we? By forgetting him? He looks like one of those things from my game. You know, the wobbly white things from Kingdom Hearts?” Her mouth twists with something too bitter to be amusement. “I've played that game twenty times in five years and I suddenly don't know what they're called. It's like he ate _holes_ in us, random ones. I could have forgotten my kid, or my family...”

 

“Your husband.” Her brows are drawn down heavy as she twists to stare at him over her shoulder.

 

“Who?”

 

She doesn't argue when he shakes the pill out in her hand, just looks at it hard before shrugging and holding it tightly in her fist as she turns on her heels and heads for the door.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Your office. We're trying to get shit back to normal, right? Well I've got a nauseating amount of really happy family kind of photos splattered through my phone and house that say I'm probably going to wake up looking for at least one of you. I figured since Ianto was the one waking up in handcuffs he might appreciate it too. Killing Adam breaks the voodoo, that's what you said.”

 

“That's what I'm _guessing_.” But he reaches over, turning the screen back off and petting Tosh's sleeping shoulder one more time before dimming the light as he follows Cheyenne from the room. “It's not the same thing as being sure Cheyenne. He tried to kill you an hour ago.”

 

“No, _actually_ he saved my life an hour ago and last night too, apparently. If that boy loves me like that when he doesn't even remember it, I can at least be with him when we wake up.” The stillness is heavy as they break it, footsteps ringing off the grating as they take the stairs side by side.

 

“He could wake up dangerous.”

 

“He's in Weevil cuffs with a sore airway and muscles that are probably locking into awful knots as we speak. If he wakes up doing anything more sinister than crying I'll preform the lewd public act of your choice.”

 

The corner of Jack's mouth quirks up as he reaches around her, opening the office door. The press of her body against him is phantom familiar, disappearing when she crosses the floor to the couch.

 

“You're only saying that because of the Retcon.” The overstuffed loam brown leather creaks as she flops down into it and Jack helps her settle Ianto down so that his head is comfortably pillowed in her lap. The phone he passes to her, watching her eyes light up as Indiana's face fills the screen. “Now, take it Chy.”

 

She falls under with her fingers twisted in Ianto's hair, shoulders rising and falling perfectly in time with his.

 

It takes hours to wipe all traces of Adam from every system and bit of footage, locking it all behind twists and snarls of passwords and firewalls that he's probably going to regret should he have to get to the information quickly. By the time he's done programing Mainframe to only release the folder if someone specifically asks for files involving the search keys Adam and Memory tampering, he's forgotten completely about the greenhouse and has most likely ruined Rhiannon Davies entire day from the sound of her voice when he told her she'd need to pick up her nephew and be prepared to keep him until further notice. Faintly he can hear Ianto's phone already beginning to ring as Jack scrawls his customary 'post Retcon seal of approval' and sticks it in his pocket before making his way back down to the prison cells.

 

Adam has changed drastically since Jack saw him last. Nothing about him is particularly human anymore, or solid for that matter although he's not exactly inhuman _or_ translucent. His arms and legs are _wrong_ for no particular reason Jack can see and it makes the Golem creature behind the glass jerk uncannily as it twitches and paces, looking at him from tiny black eyes over a mouth that just looks like a slit until it curls up into a shark's grin. Nobody. That's the name of the creatures Cheyenne couldn't remember and Jack knows instinctively that Adam didn't look like this until Jack remembered the name of the imaginary monster as he opened the door.

 

“You're not here by accident. This wasn't a coincidence.” The semi-opaque thing in the cell pauses long enough to shudder painfully before pressing it's mitten like hands against the glass. It's a nightmare manikin, face a blurred smudge of Adam's features although that too big monster smile still leers clearly at him.

 

“No, Time Agent, I didn't fall through the Rift by accident.” Amazingly it still sounds like the man they called Adam despite its twisting, flickering form. “I had an anchorman here who steadied this end, someone who thought about me _quite_ hard. Hard enough to steer my fall. They had a shape all picked out for me and everything. Not as pretty as the rest of you, but we take what we can get, eh?”

 

“You're telling me an awful lot.”

 

“Out of spite, Agent. I've lost, so it brings me great pleasure, answering your every question and knowing you're going to give it all up to win.” Those small perfect circles of inky black where Adam's eyes were gleam with satisfaction despite the agonized trembling wracking its muscles as the blank thing slides down the cell wall. “I look forward to telling you _everything_ you've ever wanted to know.”

 

“Fine then.” The Retcon is small in his palm and Jack slips it into his breast pocket before he begins to sweat and starts to absorb it through his skin. “You called me a Time Agent. So this is personal; an attack on me and not Torchwood.”

 

“I'm a multi-tasker. It was a satisfying both.” Adam convulses, flickering briefly before regaining its crude approximation of a form. “I _owed_ you this pain Agent, the rest of your team though, that was orders.”

 

“Who's orders?”

 

“The one who sent me, obviously; the one who rescued me from that abattoir where you left us to die. I know you don't remember us, that would rather defeat their purpose, but trust me that I looked you in your eyes. You almost wiped us out. You turned on your own people, you and your death squad. You swept the labs, killed as many as you could, and left the rest of us to burn.”

 

“So that's what you are.” Jack's voice is low in wonder as stares down at the huddled creature on the cold cement grinning back at him. “You're part of the Silent Roar failure from the forty-eighth century, those rogues that almost got the Agency disbanded.” Jack was born almost three hundred years after the secret cold war involving a splinter group of the Time Agency and a bio-factory where the devils and monsters of space and time were fused together in hope of making weapons and it was _still_ universally classified information when he was a cadet. “Good. _Good_. If you came out of those labs then you are a weapon of war. A sick, sinister tool that violates the rights of every sentient species no matter what they are, and if I was involved in that raid, my only regret is that at some point in my past I made the mistake of looking at your body on the ground and stepping over it to keep going.”

 

“Good. Feel that way Agent. Feel like a hero for it, because you're right. We're not good guys, we were weapons and we were effective, weren't we?” It flickers quickly. “I almost had your team.”

 

“You _never_ had my team.”

 

“I saw Ianto when you took me away. The marks on his neck say differently, Time Agent.” The blank, man-shaped figure forces itself to its strange, blockish feet, pressing it's rounded defingered hand against the glass. “Do you have any more questions before you take your little pill? I'm all yours Jack, your wish is my command.”

 

“No.” The retcon is plucked from the breast pocket of Jack's shirt, held up where Adam can see it. “You're too excited to tell me and I'm done playing your game.” The white tab snaps between his teeth as Jack bites down angrily, staring down the thing grinning that Tim Burton grin at him.

 

“Good!” It slumps back to its knees as Jack grinds the larger dose between his teeth, groaning in pain. “He s-said you'd goad easy once your p-pets, ugh, pets were dragged into it.” The room is beginning to sway and Jack presses his shoulder blades against the wall, propping himself up as he watches the alien thing wrap too long arms around itself, crumpling forward until its mostly featureless face is pressed to the concrete. “I was starting to worry I'd fade too much before you took your dose. I was told, very specifically, not to tell you until it was too late to change your mind.”

 

“Tell me what?” He takes an overly large step towards the cell and the room whirls around him, vertigo tossing him to the ground. The thing begins to flicker, coming back a little more transparent every time it forces itself back to solidity with a groan. “Tell me...tell me _what_?”

 

“That I know where what you're looking for is. Oh, _oh,_ it hurts.” Jack watches through eyes that don't quite want to focus as bits of Adam begin to fade away. “Look at me when I say this Agent, I want to see it hurt when I tell you what you've erased. Argh! Hey, Time Agent!” Adam flops over onto its side, slapping the glass to pull Jack's horrified gaze away from the legs dissolving into mist. “I know where your brother is.”

 

It dies laughing, and its laughter chases Jack well past the drugged edge of sleep.

 

***

 

Epilogue

 

Ianto comes awake suddenly to the sensation that someone has thoroughly and shamefully kicked his ass. His throat spasms agonizingly as he tries to swallow, tears of agony pricking at the corners of his eyes before he blinks them away. His arms are tingling with pins and needles; back, neck, and shoulders twisted into a cramped blaze that's cuffed into place.

 

Ianto has no idea why he's waking up in Jack's office handcuffed and the victim of a serious beat down, but he hopes someone tells him soon.

 

The attempt to wake Cheyenne is futile. He knows it's her lap he's lying in without looking, has familiarized himself with the landscape of her body and he knows how he fits against every curve and swell. He's got no voice at the moment to call her name and she doesn't so much as twitch when he does his best to jostle her awake.

 

He's still trying with increasing urgency to rouse any kind of reaction from the distressingly still body under him when Jack's door swings open more than fifteen later. Gwen's standing in the doorway, gun in hand and brow furrowed in confusion as she looks around. Her finger is already pressed to her lip and it's heavily disquieting that she disappears from sight to sweep the room before coming over to the couch.

 

“Sorry, it's just that we've lost two bloody days and no one could find the three of you. Oh, _Ianto_!” He knows that croon. That's Gwen's 'something harmless is wounded' coo; the sound she can't stop herself from making when one of them has taken a beating worthy of at least two days medical leave. It feels better knowing he looks at least half as rough as he feels. Her hand reaches out before shying away from his throat and moving to the small of his back, squeezing his own hand once before she settles her small fingers against his numb and tingling wrists to take his pulse. The weight of her fingers leaves a pulsing echo against his skin when she pulls them away and leans forward, presumably to check on Cheyenne and Ianto really wishes he could tell her that he can see right down her shirt because this is now painful, nerve wracking, _and_ awkward.

 

“I've got Ianto and Cheyenne, still no sign of Jack. Tosh, you keep looking. Owen, I need you to grab an emergency bag and get up to Jack's office please. Cheyenne's still out and someone tried to kill Ianto.”

 

***

 

It's startling how quickly Owen is in Jack's office, bossing Gwen around while he carefully cuts the cuffs away from Ianto's wrists and helps ease Ianto upright. He wants to make a joke about how heartwarming it all is and just makes another one of those nauseatingly loud clicks when he swallows instead.

 

“Well, the good news is that if your larynx or trachea were damaged in any serious way it hasn't manifested yet. The bad news is that, most likely, you're technically still in the danger zone for airway collapse but since the Hub has us locked down on quarantine for another eighteen hours you'll probably ride out the rest of that red zone under medical care.”

 

“Owen, I have no idea how to read this.” Gwen shoves what Ianto's pretty sure used to be a glucose meter under Owen's nose. The strip dangling from the end of it is an ombre of pale pinks, shading down to a light fuschia where the edge of the paper rested on the tip of Cheyenne's tongue.

 

“Don't worry about it. She got the right weight class, forty-eight hour dose like the rest of us. Her half-life's higher than ours by a good seven to eight percent, so she hasn't been out as long. Best guess, she took it ten to fifteen minutes after we did. If she doesn't come around in the next five to ten minutes we'll try waking her then.” The medic ejects the strip into one of his portable bio-hazard buckets, tossing in the bright purple gloves he strips off his hands as well. “Open up Teaboy, I need a reading from you too for the case file.” He's never had to do a reading for Retcon levels beforeand the strips taste like those sweet and sour candies that came on elastic bracelets when he was a kid.

 

“Tosh found Jack on the floor down in the cell blocks. They're on their way up now. I'm going to meet them down by the Rift monitor unless you need help.”

 

“With which one, the one who got strung up like a piñata or the one sucking her thumb?” Owen's eyes roll as the machine attached to the other end of the paper in Ianto's mouth beeps. “Spit it out.” It's not nearly as pink. “Right, looks like you were the first man taken out. Gwen, hand this to Jack when you get there, he knows how to read it. So, I've got an awesome neck brace that's going to help support your head, take the weight off your bruised throat, and is cushioned with those adaptive gel pads we scavenged from that wreck, the ones that warm and cool depending on the muscles. Do you want the really good neck brace, or are you an idiot who's going to try and tough it out with a regular heat pack?” He can't force the words past his throat but Owen's already scowling down into his bag and digging out the cheap chemical hot packs from the drug store. “I know what your problem is, you big idiot and I'm suggesting the brace for a reason. Fine, but the _second_ everyone knows what's going on the brace goes on. Look, I've _got_ to ask, officially. You weren't planning to top yourself two days ago, right?” He glares at the doctor until the other man snorts. “Yeah, didn't think so. Congratulations on surviving your own hanging then.”

 

Jack's voice beats him to the office by at least twenty feet because he's obnoxiously immune to the groggy fog Retcon leaves hanging over the rest of them.

 

“Well, the good news is I've got a note in my pocket from myself saying we self-administered so nothing...” Obviously Ianto needs a mirror because he must look even worse than he feels. Jack comes bounding up to his door, herding Tosh and Gwen ahead of him only to stop short and silent as Ianto gives him a half smile. “What the _hell_ happened?”

 

“He'll be fine.” It's like Jack doesn't hear Owen's attempt to soothe him, storming across the floor and tipping Ianto's head up almost uncomfortably far. Jack's fingers are steady in a way they only get when the immortal man is mad and thinks he might need to shoot something soon, tracing a not quite straight line around Ianto's throat. “No damage to the hyoid bone or laryngeal fractures, but he's aphonic and edemic, ecchymoses is pronounced and erythema is fading.”

 

“You know perfectly well I have no idea what you said.”

 

“I know. He can't talk, he's swollen up, it probably feels exactly the way it looks, and the stupid little bastard won't put on my fucking _miracle_ neck brace. He thinks it'll be too alarming because he hasn't actually seen himself.”

 

“Put the brace on Ianto.” Jack's already unknotting Ianto's tie and he rolls his eyes at Gwen until she whips her phone out of her pocket and takes a picture, passing it over to him.

 

Yeah, the brace is probably the lesser of the two evils after all. He actually looks _worse_ than he feels, thank heavens for small mercies, and the fat black and blue line dug deep into his puffy red throat is probably more alarming than the slim black plastic cuff will be. Jack's scowling as he tugs Ianto's clothes out of the way and fumbles the brace trying to get it on.

 

“It's upside down, genius. Give me that.” Owen elbows Jack out of the way, wrapping something around Ianto's throat that manages to be both really comfortable and supremely annoying as it clings to him like a really ineffective strangler. “Oh shut up, you'll thank me when your larynx doesn't detach and fall straight out the other side.”

 

***

 

Jack doesn't fuss exactly, but he's still got them all penned in his office by the time Cheyenne comes awake with the wet smack of her thumb slipping from her mouth, while he double verifies the note scribbled in a layered angular font that's obviously alien. It's not that he's told everyone to stay so much as the way he stares at them every time one of them stands until they settle again. She smudges her eyeliner yawning and surveys the room with a glare.

 

“I feel like there's no way for this to be a good thing.”

 

“Not sure yet. If you feel groggy, it's because we all took two days worth of Retcon roughly eighteen hours ago.”

 

“We...holy shit, where's my kid?” She's out the door before anyone can answer her, Gwen at her heels. Ianto's already digging in his jacket because he's been calmly assuming this entire time that his son was with his sister and now he's suddenly terrified that the boy isn't. Jack's patting himself down, brows furrowed as Ianto yanks out his phone. His screen is covered in alerts from missed calls, texts, and alarms.

 

There are more than forty missed calls and texts all together; a mix of threats, pleas, and a couple confused looking pics of his kid, all from his sister. Cheyenne slinks back into the room, purse dangling from her shoulder and phone in her hand as she slumps back onto the couch next to Ianto. Gwen dropping down next to them both.

 

“Never mind. Found him. His aunt has him, exactly the way she's supposed to if no one shows up to daycare. False alarm, blame the drugs. So, you were saying something about Retcon?”

 

In the end there isn't much to say about Retcon or anything else really. Hours at a time are missing from cameras all over the Hub and chunks from across the city as well. There's a half demolished crime scene in the greenhouse, most of a noose still hanging from the greenhouse roof, a sweater vest that no one recognizes on the boardroom table, a leather jacket in the vaults, auditing bins and files scattered across every flat surface, and flowers with Owen's name on them sitting on Toshiko's desk.

 

That's it. That's what they have to work with.

 

“So, judging from the evidence, a Bad Boy with a secret Nerd side, or a well groomed yuppie with a hidden Rebel in his heart, broke into the Hub where he then did slightly less work than we all should actually have done combined, strung Jonesy here up like a windsock, changed his mind and cut him down, before scattering his clothes across the Hub, deleting all the footage and then talking us into erasing two days.”

 

There's nothing. Every single half piece of random 'evidence' they find is more useless junk than anything else and they're all sitting around the lounge making up conclusions while they wait for the quarantine that's in place to trip or for Jack to override it. The girls have long since demolished the tacky, oversized flower arrangement that Owen refuses to take the blame for and Gwen's showing Cheyenne how to make daisy chains with carnations while Ianto sips at the beer in his hand and puts a few last lines on the sketch he's been doodling on a scrap piece of paper while the other talk. A long angular sketch in heavy black dangles in the middle of a much lusher landscape than just the greenhouse, a party hat on its head while small shaggy tabbed bears and burros dance stiffly at its feet brandishing foam bats. He's titled it 'Vengeance of a dozen birthdays' and Owen snorts beer out his nose when Ianto holds up his version of the missing two days.

 

“You have a warped sense of humor Ianto Jones.” Jack's voice is disgustedly impressed as he comes up behind Owen, reaching around to take a closer look at it before snorting. “I mean it, something in you is twisted my friend.” And whatever it is Jack must love it because he's got one of Indiana's ice lollies dangling between his fingers and he hands them both over at the same time, perching on the arm of the couch and making room for Cheyenne to prop up her chin on his knee. “Alright, everything checks out as much as it's going to. I'm declaring this dealt with and clearing us off the quarantine. Anyone who stays now gets to leave at three. Anyone who wants to go now comes in at three to make up the day.”

 

“Please, the beer's already out at nine in the morning on audits week and I just slept better than I have in four years. Why would I miss the party just to go home and have to actually _work_ when I come in tonight?”

 

“That's that then. Let's assume we saved the world when we weren't looking. Owen, grab one of those crates in the back hall and another case of beer while you're up. Let's at least _pretend_ to be professionals.” There's a thud against his leg and Ianto looks over at Jack who has tossed Ianto's diary onto the couch in the space behind Cheyenne's tucked up knees. “Oh, I found that by the way. Thought you'd be looking for it. A page fell out, but it was a rift reading.” Jack's grin is entirely too cheerful and Ianto can't help trying to curse when he sees the post-it stuck in the center of the first page with the phrase 'measuring tape never lies' scrawled across it in Jack's wide heavy print.

 

“So, I just finished letting Rhys shout the house down for ten minutes and he's not making any sense at all. Do we know an Adam, Jack? Someone from UNIT maybe?”

 

“Nope, not off the top of my head. Why?”

 

“Dunno, he was part of Rhys' rant. Thought he may have been someone you know.”

 

“Ianto, text your sister because she keeps texting _me_. Apparently she doesn't believe that you're not dying because you sent her a picture to prove you're okay wearing a fucking _neck_ brace! Promise her we'll stop by after we pick up Indy.” Across the table Tosh is perched on the edge of her chair, two lilies twisted up into her hair as she sips her own drink and flicks through the scanned files on her tablet.

 

“Someone filed fifteen things yesterday without signing off on them. Luckily it looks like they're all batched together down in Ianto's office.”

 

“Cheyenne, you took over the _entire conference room_ at some point and we're going to need it back please.”

 

“Hey Teaboy, it's your neck that’s broken, not your feet. Get them off the table so I can put this damn crate down.” The box barely skims the soles of his shoes as Ianto jerks his feet out of the way, leaning forward to take a handful of folders off the top and start passing them around. Regardless of what else has happened it's audits week and now they're more than a day behind. They've got a lot of work left to do, and a lot of beer to do it with as they start winding down towards the Rifts brief and blessed quiet season.

 

“Is it just me, or does this look like a butt plug made for something with three assholes?”

 

_Fins_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. We'll be returning for my birthday (April 22nd) with 'A Sorta Fairytale' the Blocking verse version of 'Something Borrowed'.


End file.
